Question

i need a way to search the computer for files like Windows Explorer. i want my program to search lets say hard drive c:. i need it to search C:\ for folders and files (just the ones you could see in c:\ then if the user clicks on a file on the list like the folder test (C:\test) it would search test and let the user see what files/folders are in it.

Answer 1

Since you mentioned windows, the most straight forward winapi way to do it is with FindFirstFile and FindNextFile functions.

edit: Here’s an example that shows you how to enumerate all files/folders in a directory.

#include <Windows.h>
#include <iostream>


int main()
{
    WIN32_FIND_DATA file;
    HANDLE search_handle=FindFirstFile(L"C:\\*",&file);
    if (search_handle)
    {
        do
        {
            std::wcout << file.cFileName << std::endl;
        }while(FindNextFile(search_handle,&file));
        FindClose(search_handle);

    }

}