Question

This is the code I have for checking if a file exists in my visual studio 2010 c++ project:

bool GLSLProgram::fileExists( const string & fileName )
{
    struct stat info;
    int ret = -1;

    ret = stat(fileName.c_str(), &info);
    return 0 == ret;
}

I am not sure why it returns false for “shaders/color.vert” when that file really exists, and shaders is a folder in my project main folder.

Can you see something wrong?

THanks

Answer 1

Ok, so to illustrate the quirks of running from the IDE here’s a little test I did. Hopefully this should help you figure out how relative paths work in VS.

So my folder hierarchy looks like this:

/_Sandbox
    _Sandbox.sln
    /Debug
        _Sandbox.exe
        /shaders
            color.vert
    /_Sandbox
        _Sandbox.proj
        main.cpp

The code looks as follows:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <sys/stat.h>

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    struct stat info;

    std::string path = "shaders/color.vert"; // To not I get the same behavior with "shaders\\color.vert"
    int ret = stat(path.c_str(), &info);

    ret == 0 ? std::cout << "File found." << std::endl : std::cout << "File doesn't exist." << std::endl;

    std::cin.get();
    return 0;
}

So if I run this in the IDE, I get “File doesn’t exist.”, if I run this outside the IDE, I get “File Found”. In order for the program to find the shader file from inside VS I have to put the shader folder like so:

/_Sandbox
    _Sandbox.sln
    /Debug
        _Sandbox.exe
    /_Sandbox
        /shaders
            color.vert
        _Sandbox.proj
        main.cpp

You can however get the code to find the folder from inside and outside the IDE. What you have to do is go to your project’s settings. In “Debugging” and change “Working directory” to $(SolutionDir)$(Configuration)\

Hopefully this clears things up for you.