How do I recursively create a folder in Win32?

Question

I\'m trying to create a function that takes the name of a directory (C:\\foo\\bar, or ..\\foo\\bar\\..\\baz, or \\\\someserver\\foo\\bar

Answer 1

Here is a function I wrote which iteratively creates a folder tree. Here is the main function:

#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 

// Returns false on success, true on error
bool createFolder(std::string folderName) {
    list folderLevels;
    char* c_str = (char*)folderName.c_str();

    // Point to end of the string
    char* strPtr = &c_str[strlen(c_str) - 1];

    // Create a list of the folders which do not currently exist
    do {
        if (folderExists(c_str)) {
            break;
        }
        // Break off the last folder name, store in folderLevels list
        do {
            strPtr--;
        } while ((*strPtr != '\\') && (*strPtr != '/') && (strPtr >= c_str));
        folderLevels.push_front(string(strPtr + 1));
        strPtr[1] = 0;
    } while (strPtr >= c_str);

    if (_chdir(c_str)) {
        return true;
    }

    // Create the folders iteratively
    for (list::iterator it = folderLevels.begin(); it != folderLevels.end(); it++) {
        if (CreateDirectory(it->c_str(), NULL) == 0) {
            return true;
        }
        _chdir(it->c_str());
    }

    return false;
}

The folderExists routine is as follows:

// Return true if the folder exists, false otherwise
bool folderExists(const char* folderName) {
    if (_access(folderName, 0) == -1) {
        //File not found
        return false;
    }

    DWORD attr = GetFileAttributes((LPCSTR)folderName);
    if (!(attr & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY)) {
        // File is not a directory
        return false;
    }

    return true;
}

An example call I tested the above functions with is as follows (and it works):

createFolder("C:\\a\\b\\c\\d\\e\\f\\g\\h\\i\\j\\k\\l\\m\\n\\o\\p\\q\\r\\s\\t\\u\\v\\w\\x\\y\\z");

This function hasn't gone through very thorough testing, and I'm not sure it yet works with other operating systems (but probably is compatible with a few modifications). I am currently using Visual Studio 2010 with Windows 7.