Fastest way to check if a file exist using standard C++/C++11,14,17/C?
Well I threw together a test program that ran each of these methods 100,000 times, half on files that existed and half on files that didn't.
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string>
#include <fstream>
inline bool exists_test0 (const std::string& name) {
ifstream f(name.c_str());
return f.good();
}
inline bool exists_test1 (const std::string& name) {
if (FILE *file = fopen(name.c_str(), "r")) {
fclose(file);
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
inline bool exists_test2 (const std::string& name) {
return ( access( name.c_str(), F_OK ) != -1 );
}
inline bool exists_test3 (const std::string& name) {
struct stat buffer;
return (stat (name.c_str(), &buffer) == 0);
}
Results for total time to run the 100,000 calls averaged over 5 runs,
Method | Time |
---|---|
exists_test0 (ifstream) |
0.485s |
exists_test1 (FILE fopen) |
0.302s |
exists_test2 (posix access()) |
0.202s |
exists_test3 (posix stat()) |
0.134s |
The stat()
function provided the best performance on my system (Linux, compiled with g++
), with a standard fopen
call being your best bet if you for some reason refuse to use POSIX functions.
Remark : in C++14 and as soon as the filesystem TS will be finished and adopted, the solution will be to use:
std::experimental::filesystem::exists("helloworld.txt");
and since C++17, only:
std::filesystem::exists("helloworld.txt");