Globbing in C++/C, on Windows

Question

Is there a smooth way to glob in C or C++ in Windows?

E.g., myprogram.exe *.txt sends my program an ARGV list that has...ARGV[1]=*.txt in it.

Answer 1

This is very Windows-specific. I don't know how you'd write this to be cross-platform. But I've used this in Windows programs and it works well for me.

// Change to the specified working directory
string path;
cout << "Enter the path to report: ";
cin >> path;
_chdir(path.c_str());

// Get the file description
string desc;
cout << "Enter the file description: ";
cin >> desc;

// List the files in the directory
intptr_t file;
_finddata_t filedata;
file = _findfirst(desc.c_str(),&filedata);
if (file != -1)
{
  do
  {
    cout << filedata.name << endl;
    // Or put the file name in a vector here
  } while (_findnext(file,&filedata) == 0);
}
else
{
  cout << "No described files found" << endl;
}
_findclose(file);