std::experimental::filesystem::path - cppreference.com (original) (raw)

Objects of type path represent paths on a filesystem. Only syntactic aspects of paths are handled: the pathname may represent a non-existing path or even one that is not allowed to exist on the current file system or OS.

The path name has the following syntax:

  1. root-name(optional): identifies the root on a filesystem with multiple roots (such as "C:" or "//myserver". POSIX filesystems have single root.
  2. root-directory(optional): a directory separator that, if present, marks this path as absolute. If it is missing (and the first element other than the root name is a file name), then the path is relative and requires another path as the starting location to resolve to a file name.
  3. Zero or more of the following:

The path can be traversed element-wise via iterators returned by the begin() and end() functions, which iterates over root name, root directory, and the subsequent file name elements (directory separators are skipped except the one that identifies the root directory). If the very last element in the path is a directory separator, the last iterator will dereference to a file name dot.

Calling any non-const member function of a path invalidates all iterators referring to elements of that object.

If the OS uses a native syntax that is different from the portable generic syntax described above, all library functions accept path names in both formats.

Paths are implicitly convertible to and from std::basic_strings, which makes it possible to use them with other file APIs, e.g. as an argument to std::ifstream::open.

Contents

[edit] Member types

Type Definition
value_type character type used by the native encoding of the filesystem: char on POSIX, wchar_t on Windows
string_type std::basic_string<value_type>
const_iterator a constant LegacyBidirectionalIterator with a value_type of path
iterator an alias to const_iterator

[edit] Member constants

constexpr value_type preferred_separator[static] alternative directory separator which may be used in addition to the portable /. On Windows, this is the backslash character \. On POSIX, this is the same forward slash / as the portable separator (public static member constant)

[edit] Member functions

(constructor) constructs a path (public member function) [edit]
(destructor) destroys a path object (public member function) [edit]
operator= assigns another path (public member function) [edit]
assign assigns contents (public member function) [edit]
Concatenation
appendoperator/= appends elements to the path (public member function) [edit]
concatoperator+= concatenates two paths without introducing a directory separator (public member function) [edit]
Modifiers
clear erases the contents (public member function) [edit]
make_preferred converts directory separators to preferred directory separator (public member function) [edit]
remove_filename removes filename path component (public member function) [edit]
replace_filename replaces the last path component with another path (public member function) [edit]
replace_extension replaces the extension (public member function) [edit]
swap swaps two paths (public member function) [edit]
Format observers
c_strnativeoperator string_type returns the native version of the path (public member function) [edit]
stringwstringu8stringu16stringu32string returns the path in native pathname format converted to a string (public member function) [edit]
generic_stringgeneric_wstringgeneric_u8stringgeneric_u16stringgeneric_u32string returns the path in generic pathname format converted to a string (public member function) [edit]
Compare
compare compares the lexical representations of two paths lexicographically (public member function) [edit]
Decomposition
root_name returns the root-name of the path, if present (public member function) [edit]
root_directory returns the root directory of the path, if present (public member function) [edit]
root_path returns the root path of the path, if present (public member function) [edit]
relative_path returns path relative to the root path (public member function) [edit]
parent_path returns the path of the parent path (public member function) [edit]
filename returns the filename path component (public member function) [edit]
stem returns the stem path component (public member function) [edit]
extension returns the file extension path component (public member function) [edit]
Queries
empty checks if the path is empty (public member function) [edit]
has_root_pathhas_root_namehas_root_directoryhas_relative_pathhas_parent_pathhas_filenamehas_stemhas_extension checks if the corresponding path element is not empty (public member function) [edit]
is_absoluteis_relative checks if root_path() uniquely identifies file system location (public member function) [edit]
Iterators
beginend iterator access to the path as a sequence of elements (public member function) [edit]

[edit] Non-member functions