Question

Are there any facilities in SDL or C++ that allow you to read image files in from a folder without specifying their name, like reading them in sequential order, etc.? If not are there any techniques you use to accomplish something along the same lines?

Doing something like this:

foo_ani[0] = LoadImage("Animations/foo1.png");
foo_ani[1] = LoadImage("Animations/foo2.png");
foo_ani[2] = LoadImage("Animations/foo3.png");

can become quite tedious, and a loop can’t be used because the file name is specific each time.

The only way I could really think of is maybe having a string that you modify through each loop iterator and insert the loop number into the specific part of the string assuming that’s how your files are labeled, and using that string as the LoadImage parameter. That seems like more work though than just doing the above.

Answer 1

Use boost::filesystem.

The tiny program shown here lists all files in the directory files/, matching the pattern fileN.type, where N is from 0 and upwards, unspecified.

#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>
#include <string>
#include <boost/filesystem.hpp>

using namespace std;
namespace fs = boost::filesystem;
int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
    fs::path dir ("./files");
    string prefix = "file";
    string suffix = "type";
    int i = 0;

    fs::path file;

    do {
        stringstream ss;
        ss << prefix << i++ << "." << suffix;
        file = fs::path(dir / fs::path(ss.str()));
        if(fs::exists(file)) {
            cout << file.leaf() << " exists." << endl;
        }
    } while(fs::exists(file));
    return 0;
}

Link with -lboost_filesystem.

boost::filesystem also provides a simple directory iterator.