How can I tell if a given path is a directory or a file? (C/C++)

Question

stat() will tell you this.

struct stat s;
if( stat(path,&s) == 0 )
{
    if( s.st_mode & S_IFDIR )
    {
        //it's a directory
    }
    else if( s.st_mode & S_IFREG )
    {
        //it's a file
    }
    else
    {
        //something else
    }
}
else
{
    //error
}

Call GetFileAttributes, and check for the FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY attribute.

With C++14/C++17 you can use the platform independent is_directory() and is_regular_file() from the filesystem library.

#include <filesystem> // C++17
#include <iostream>
namespace fs = std::filesystem;

int main()
{
    const std::string pathString = "/my/path";
    const fs::path path(pathString); // Constructing the path from a string is possible.
    std::error_code ec; // For using the non-throwing overloads of functions below.
    if (fs::is_directory(path, ec))
    { 
        // Process a directory.
    }
    if (ec) // Optional handling of possible errors.
    {
        std::cerr << "Error in is_directory: " << ec.message();
    }
    if (fs::is_regular_file(path, ec))
    {
        // Process a regular file.
    }
    if (ec) // Optional handling of possible errors. Usage of the same ec object works since fs functions are calling ec.clear() if no errors occur.
    {
        std::cerr << "Error in is_regular_file: " << ec.message();
    }
}

In C++14 use std::experimental::filesystem.

#include <experimental/filesystem> // C++14
namespace fs = std::experimental::filesystem;

Additional implemented checks are listed in section "File types".

In Win32, I usually use PathIsDirectory and its sister functions. This works in Windows 98, which GetFileAttributes does not (according to the MSDN documentation.)