Question

I’m reading various files and directories with the FindFirst / FindNext functions as described here.

The only problem I have, is that I can’t figure out if the file is a symlink. In the file attributes there is no constant or flag and I can’t find a function for testing for symlinks.

Answer 1

Your original idea of using findfirst is best, since it is a portable solution (windows has symlinks too nowadays). The only thing to adapt is to request symlink checking in the attributes you pass to findfirst:

uses sysutils;

var info : TSearchrec;

begin
  // the or fasymlink in the next file is necessary so that findfirst
  //     uses (fp)lstat instead of (fp)stat
  If FindFirst ('../*',faAnyFile or fasymlink ,Info)=0 then
     begin
    Repeat
      With Info do
        begin
        If (Attr and fasymlink) = fasymlink then
           Writeln('found symlink: ', info.name)
        else
           writeln('not a symlink: ', info.name,' ',attr);
        end;
    Until FindNext(info)<>0;
    end;
  FindClose(Info);
end.