Question

Why is the if statment always true?

char dot[] = ".";
char twoDots[] = "..";
cout << "d_name is " << ent->d_name << endl;
if(strcmp(ent->d_name, dot) || strcmp(ent->d_name, twoDots))

Am I using strcmp wrong?

Answer 1

strcmp() returns 0 when strings equal and a string cannot be both "." and "..". meaning one side of the || will always be non-zero and therefore the condition is always true.

To correct:

if(0 == strcmp(ent->d_name, dot) || 0 == strcmp(ent->d_name, twoDots))

An alternative would be to use std::string to store the dot variables and use ==:

#include <string>

const std::string dot(".");
const std::string twoDots("..");

if (ent->d_name == dot || ent->d_name == twoDots)