Question

I am iterating through all files in a directory recursively using the following:

try
{
    for ( bf::recursive_directory_iterator end, dir("./");
          dir != end; ++dir )
    {
       const bf::path &p = dir->path();
       if(bf::is_regular_file(p))
       {
           std::cout << "File found: " << p.string() << std::endl;
       }
    }
} catch (const bf::filesystem_error& ex) {
    std::cerr << ex.what() << '\n';
}

But this includes hidden files and files in hidden directories.

How do I filter out these files? If needed I can limit myself to platforms where hidden files and directories begin with the ‘.’ character.

Answer 1

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a cross-platform way of handling “hidden”. The following works on Unix-like platforms:

First define:

bool isHidden(const bf::path &p)
{
    bf::path::string_type name = p.filename();
    if(name != ".." &&
       name != "."  &&
       name[0] == '.')
    {
       return true;
    }

    return false;
}

Then traversing the files becomes:

try
{
    for ( bf::recursive_directory_iterator end, dir("./");
           dir != end; ++dir)
    {
       const bf::path &p = dir->path();

       //Hidden directory, don't recurse into it
       if(bf::is_directory(p) && isHidden(p))
       {
           dir.no_push();
           continue;
       }

       if(bf::is_regular_file(p) && !isHidden(p))
       {
           std::cout << "File found: " << p.string() << std::endl;
       }
    }
} catch (const bf::filesystem_error& ex) {
    std::cerr << ex.what() << '\n';
}