GetFileInformationByHandle function (fileapi.h)

Article
07/27/2022

Retrieves file information for the specified file.

For a more advanced version of this function, see GetFileInformationByHandleEx.

To set file information using a file handle, see SetFileInformationByHandle.

Syntax

BOOL GetFileInformationByHandle(
  [in]  HANDLE                       hFile,
  [out] LPBY_HANDLE_FILE_INFORMATION lpFileInformation
);

Parameters

[in] hFile

A handle to the file that contains the information to be retrieved.

This handle should not be a pipe handle.

[out] lpFileInformation

A pointer to a BY_HANDLE_FILE_INFORMATION structure that receives the file information.

Return value

If the function succeeds, the return value is nonzero and file information data is contained in the buffer pointed to by the lpFileInformation parameter.

If the function fails, the return value is zero. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

Remarks

Depending on the underlying network features of the operating system and the type of server connected to, the GetFileInformationByHandle function may fail, return partial information, or full information for the given file.

You can compare the VolumeSerialNumber and FileIndex members returned in the BY_HANDLE_FILE_INFORMATION structure to determine if two paths map to the same target; for example, you can compare two file paths and determine if they map to the same directory.

IIn Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, this function is supported by the following technologies.

Technology	Supported
Server Message Block (SMB) 3.0 protocol	Yes
SMB 3.0 Transparent Failover (TFO)	Yes
SMB 3.0 with Scale-out File Shares (SO)	Yes
Cluster Shared Volume File System (CsvFS)	Yes
Resilient File System (ReFS)	Yes

Transacted Operations

If there is a transaction bound to the thread at the time of the call, then the function returns the compressed file size of the isolated file view. For more information, see About Transactional NTFS.

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows XP [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows Server 2003 [desktop apps only]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	fileapi.h (include Windows.h)
Library	Kernel32.lib
DLL	Kernel32.dll

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