Re: [Boost-users] boost::filesystem::native

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] boost::filesystem::native
From: Christopher J. Pisz (cpisz_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-11-10 18:28:22

On 11/10/2016 5:23 PM, Gavin Lambert wrote:
> On 11/11/2016 12:07, Christopher J. Pisz wrote:
>> The docs really should clarify that. Google searches all over point to
>> this function for that purpose and it is even marked as an answer on
>> Stack Overflow.
>
> It is mentioned in the comments on that answer that it only works on the
> filename portion of the path.
>
> And it is mentioned in the docs, as long as you don't interpret
> "filename" and "path" to be the same thing.
>
> In particular note the description of windows_name().
>
>> If we cannot check for a valid path using this function, then does boost
>> indeed provide us a means for checking that a path is valid?
>>
>> ...Where valid means the given path does not necessarily point to a file
>> or directory, but could point to one if it was first created.
>
> As I mentioned in my other reply, you can use exists().  Or if it
> doesn't exist, you can try creating it.  Otherwise I'm not aware of
> anything that'd do it, other than iterating the path and checking each
> component separately.
>
> Most of the time, given a directory path, exists() or
> create_directories() would be the simplest option (though the latter
> throws on failure).

Fair enough! Thank you for solving today's mystery!