Searching for a File or Directory (Windows CE 5.0)

Article
09/14/2012

Use the FindFirstFile, FindNextFile, and FindClose functions to search for file names or directory names that match a specified pattern. The pattern must be a valid file name and can include the asterisk (*) and question mark (?) wildcards.

To find a single file or a series of files

Call the FindFirstFile function with the file name that is passed in through the lpFileName parameter.

The FindFirstFile function returns a handle that you can use in the FindNextFile function. FindFirstFile also returns the file name, alternate file name, file size, Windows CE object identifier, attributes, creation time, last access time, and last write time of the found file.
If necessary, call the FindNextFile function with the handle that was returned by the FindFirstFile function.

The FindNextFile function returns the same data as the FindFirstFile function. You can call FindNextFile multiple times to find variations of the same file.
Modify the file, as necessary.
Destroy the handle that was created by the FindFirstFile function by using the FindClose function.

The following code example shows how to copy all .txt files to a new directory, Textro, which contains read-only files. The example also shows how to change all of the files in the new directory to read-only, if necessary. In the example, the FindFirstFile and FindNextFile functions search the root directory for all .txt files. Each .txt file is then copied into Textro. If a file is not read-only, the example changes to the Textro directory and the SetFileAttributes function converts the copied file to read-only. After all of the .txt files are copied, the FindClose function closes the search handle.

void FindFileExample (void)
{
  WIN32_FIND_DATA FileData;   // Data structure describes the file found
  HANDLE hSearch;             // Search handle returned by FindFirstFile
  const size_t cchDest = MAX_PATH  // Set the buffer size for the file name
  TCHAR szMsg[cchDest];           // String to store the error message

  TCHAR szNewPath[cchDest];  // Name and path of the file copied
  TCHAR szDirPath[] = TEXT("\\TEXTRO");

  BOOL bFinished = FALSE;

  // Create a new directory.

  if (!CreateDirectory (szDirPath, NULL))
  {
     StringCchPrintf (szMsg, cchDest, TEXT("Unable to create new directory."));

    return;
  }

  // Start searching for .txt files in the root directory.

  hSearch = FindFirstFile (TEXT("\\*.txt"), &FileData);
  if (hSearch == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
  {
        StringCchPrintf (szMsg, cchDest, TEXT("No .TXT files found."));
    return;
  }

  // Copy each .txt file to the new directory and change it to
  // read-only, if it is not already read-only.

  while (!bFinished)
  {
    PathCombine(szNewPath, szDirPath, FileData.cFileName);

    if (NULL != szNewPath && CopyFile (FileData.cFileName, szNewPath, FALSE))
    {
      if (!(FileData.dwFileAttributes & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY))
      {
        SetFileAttributes (szNewPath,
                FileData.dwFileAttributes | FILE_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY);
      }
    }
    else
    {
      StringCchPrintf (szMsg, cchDest, TEXT("Unable to copy file."));

      // Your error-handling code goes here.
    }

    if (!FindNextFile (hSearch, &FileData))
    {
      bFinished = TRUE;

      if (GetLastError () == ERROR_NO_MORE_FILES)
      {
        StringCchPrintf (szMsg, cchDest, TEXT("Found all of the files."));
      }
      else
      {
        StringCchPrintf (szMsg, cchDest, TEXT("Unable to find next file."));
      }
    }
  }

  // Close the search handle.

  if (!FindClose (hSearch))
  {
    StringCchPrintf (szMsg, cchDest, TEXT("Unable to close search handle."));

  }
} // End of FindFileExample code

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Searching for a File or Directory (Windows CE 5.0)

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