Checking if a file is a directory or just a file [duplicate]

Question

I'm writing a program to check if something is a file or is a directory. Is there a better way to do it than this?

#include <stdio.h>  #include <sys/types.h> #include <dirent.h> #include <errno.h>  int isFile(const char* name) {     DIR* directory = opendir(name);      if(directory != NULL)     {      closedir(directory);      return 0;     }      if(errno == ENOTDIR)     {      return 1;     }      return -1; }  int main(void) {     const char* file = "./testFile";     const char* directory = "./";      printf("Is %s a file? %s.\n", file,      ((isFile(file) == 1) ? "Yes" : "No"));      printf("Is %s a directory? %s.\n", directory,      ((isFile(directory) == 0) ? "Yes" : "No"));      return 0; } 

Answer 1

You can call the stat() function and use the S_ISREG() macro on the st_mode field of the stat structure in order to determine if your path points to a regular file:

#include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/stat.h> #include <unistd.h>  int is_regular_file(const char *path) {     struct stat path_stat;     stat(path, &path_stat);     return S_ISREG(path_stat.st_mode); } 

Note that there are other file types besides regular and directory, like devices, pipes, symbolic links, sockets, etc. You might want to take those into account.