How to check if a file exists in Go?

Question

Go\'s standard library does not have a function solely intended to check if a file exists or not (like Python\'s os.path.exists). What is the idiomatic way

Answer 1

What other answers missed, is that the path given to the function could actually be a directory. Following function makes sure, that the path is really a file.

func fileExists(filename string) bool {
    info, err := os.Stat(filename)
    if os.IsNotExist(err) {
        return false
    }
    return !info.IsDir()
}

Another thing to point out: This code could still lead to a race condition, where another thread or process deletes or creates the specified file, while the fileExists function is running.

If you're worried about this, use a lock in your threads, serialize the access to this function or use an inter-process semaphore if multiple applications are involved. If other applications are involved, outside of your control, you're out of luck, I guess.