Create directory in C++

Question

I'm making a simple game in DirectX and C++. But I want to create a directory in Documents for the settings etc.

But I don't know how I need to do this?

Can someone help me?

Solution 1

The C++11 standard n3337 does not know about directories. C++17 has <filesystem> standard header.

If your implementation is C++17 compliant (it probably is not), use std::filesystem::create_directory

Otherwise, use operating system primitives. Be aware that the notion of directory can be OS specific (i.e. different in one OS from another, perhaps even between different file systems). For Windows, study the WinAPI (so consider CreateDirectoryA). For Linux, look into its syscalls(2) (so consider mkdir(2))

Some frameworks, notably Qt, POCO, Boost, provide common wrappers above them.

Solution 2

You can use a simple mkdir from <direct.h> to create directory

_mkdir("C:\\Data\\FolderName");

Solution 3

You can use Visual Studio's <filesystem>

There is a function create_directory that has the signature

template<class Path>
inline bool create_directory(
   const Path& Pval
);

You can find the user's Documents directory using SHGetKnownFolderPath which has the signature

HRESULT SHGetKnownFolderPath(
  _In_     REFKNOWNFOLDERID rfid,
  _In_     DWORD            dwFlags,
  _In_opt_ HANDLE           hToken,
  _Out_    PWSTR            *ppszPath
);

In this case the REFKNOWNFOLDERID you want to use is FOLDERID_Documents

Note this is specific to Visual Studio. The C++ <filesystem> library is still in the works (i.e. experimental) for now, but hopefully is coming soon!