std::filesystem::directory_entry::exists

bool exists() const;
bool exists( std::error_code& ec ) const noexcept;

Checks whether the pointed-to object exists. Effectively returns std::filesystem::exists(status()) or std::filesystem::exists(status(ec)), respectively (note that status() follows symlinks to their targets).

Parameters

Return value

true if the referred-to filesystem object exists.

Exceptions

The overload that does not take a std::error_code& parameter throws filesystem::filesystem_error on underlying OS API errors, constructed with p as the first path argument and the OS error code as the error code argument. The overload taking a std::error_code& parameter sets it to the OS API error code if an OS API call fails, and executes ec.clear() if no errors occur. Any overload not marked noexcept may throw std::bad_alloc if memory allocation fails.

Example

#include <filesystem>
#include <iostream>
 
int main()
{
    for (auto const str:
    {
        "/usr/bin/cat",
        "/usr/bin/mouse",
        "/usr/bin/bison",
        "/usr/bin/c++",
    })
    {
        std::filesystem::directory_entry entry{str};
 
        std::cout << "directory entry " << entry
                  << (entry.exists() ? " exists" : " does not exist")
                  << '\n';
    }
}

// Output on a POSIX system:
directory entry "/usr/bin/cat" does not exist
directory entry "/usr/bin/mouse" does not exist
directory entry "/usr/bin/bison" exists
directory entry "/usr/bin/c++" exists

See also