Re: [boost] [filesystem] size() on directory?

From: Jeremy Maitin-Shepard (jbms_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-02-02 14:19:11

Beman Dawes <bdawes_at_[hidden]> writes:

> How should size( "foo" ) behave if "foo" is a directory?
> 1) Throw. The function should be renamed file_size().

> [snip]

> I'm inclined to go with (1), naming the function "file_size", and then add a
> function later to get the number of entries in a directory. But only if there is
> enough demand. I don't want to clutter up the library with a lot of seldom used
> functions that can be trivially written as user code.

I agree that (1) is the best option.  Wanting to know the number of
entries in a directory is less common, and can be written as:

distance(directory_iterator(ph), directory_iterator())

The user may also wish to know the recursive size of all entries in the
directory, but that is probably better handled by a more generic path
visitor system.

-- 
Jeremy Maitin-Shepard