Question

This is for a Windows-only program so portable code is not an issue.

I need simply:

bool DoesFileExist( LPWSTR lpszFilename )
{
    // ...
}

Answer 1

There are two common ways to do this in Windows code. GetFileAttributes, and CreateFile,

bool DoesFileExist(LPCWSTR pszFilename)
{
   DWORD dwAttrib = GetFileAttributes(pszFilename);
   if ( ! (dwAttrib & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DEVICE) &&
        ! (dwAttrib & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY))
   {
      return true;
   }
   return false;
}

This will tell you a file exists, but but it won’t tell you whether you have access to it. for that you need to use CreateFile.

bool DoesFileExist(LPCWSTR pszFilename)
{
    HANDLE hf = CreateFile(pszFilename,
                           GENERIC_READ,
                           FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE,
                           NULL,
                           OPEN_EXISTING,
                           FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL,
                           NULL);

    if (INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE != hf)
    {
        CloseHandle(hf);
        return true;
    }
    else if (GetLastError() == ERROR_SHARING_VIOLATION)
    {
        // should we return 'exists but you can't access it' here?
        return true;
    }

    return false;
}

But remember, that even if you get back true from one of these calls, the file could still not exist by the time you get around to opening it. Many times it’s best to just behave as if the file exists and gracefully handle the errors when it doesn’t.