Filename Handling Class

I got tired of constantly coding something like this…

	char 	drive[_MAX_DRIVE],
           	path[_MAX_PATH],
           	fileName[_MAX_FNAME),
           	ext[_MAX_EXT);
	CString newPath;

    	_splitpath(fullpathname,  drive, path, fileName, ext):
	.
	.
	.
	newPath = drive;
	newPath += path + fileName;
	newPath += differentExtension;
	.
	.
	.
	//	etc

I just added zip creation and self extracting exe functionality to my app and found myself coding this stuff
yet again and thought – there has to be a better way. Then I remembered all the other places in my code that
have similar lines – license checking, history files, and decided it’s time I had a filespec class.

Herewith CFileSpec

This class can take a full or partial path name and will split it into the appropriate parts.
You can change any part of the path and when you reference the whole object what comes back is a full filespec

class CFileSpec
{
public:
	enum FS_BUILTINS
	{
		FS_EMPTY,		// Nothing
		FS_APP,			// Full application path and name
		FS_APPDIR,		// Application folder
		FS_WINDIR,		// Windows folder
		FS_SYSDIR,		// System folder
		FS_TMPDIR,		// Temporary folder
		FS_DESKTOP,		// Desktop folder
		FS_FAVOURITES,		// Favourites folder
		FS_TEMPNAME		// Create a temporary name
	};

				CFileSpec(FS_BUILTINS spec = FS_EMPTY);
				CFileSpec(LPCTSTR spec);

//	Operations
	BOOL			Exists();

//	Access functions
	CString&		Drive()				{ return m_drive; }
	CString&		Path()				{ return m_path; }
	CString&		FileName()			{ return m_fileName; }
	CString&		Extension()			{ return m_ext; }
	CString			FullPathNoExtension();

				operator LPCTSTR()		{ return GetFullSpec(); }          // as a C string

	CString			GetFullSpec();
	void			SetFullSpec(LPCTSTR spec);
	void			SetFullSpec(FS_BUILTINS spec = FS_EMPTY);

	CString			GetFileNameEx();
	void			SetFileNameEx(LPCTSTR spec);

private:
	void			Initialise();
	void			Initialise(FS_BUILTINS spec);
	void			UnLock();
	void			GetShellFolder(LPCTSTR folder);

	CString			m_drive,
				m_path,
				m_fileName,
				m_ext;
};

Each part of a full file spec is independently accessible via reference so you can code something like

	CFileSpec fs(CFileSpec::FS_APP);
	CFile	  file;

	fs.Extension = ".lic";
	file.Open(fs, CFile::modeRead | CFile::typeBinary);

which initialises the filespec to the applications full path including drive letter and then changes the extension to
.lic As you can see the dot isn’t implicit – you do need to supply it.

There is an operator to return a LPCTSTR so that the CFileSpec object can be used in calls just like a CString object can.

There are two constructors. One takes an existing path name and the other takes an enumerated constant. The constants
allow you to easily specify certain predefined paths. The list is documented in the class header file.

Note that you need to be careful when passing a path to the object. If you want to assign a path such as c:winntsystem32
it is necessary to append a otherwise the class will assume the last name in the path is actually the filename.

Download source – 2KB