boost::filesystem exists() on directory path fails, but is_directory() is ok

Question

I'm getting path to current directory with boost filesystem, then checking if the directory exists. `is_directory()` is ok, but `exists()` fails on the same path, am I missing something? Example code (boost 1.35): ``` #include #include namespace fs = boost::filesystem; // the path is full path /home/my/somedirectory fs::path data_dir(fs::current_path()); fs::is_directory(data_dir) // true, directory exists fs::exists(data_dir) // false exists(status(data_dir)) // false ``` EDIT: ``` #include #include namespace fs = boost::filesystem; fs::path data_dir(fs::current_path()); // data_dir == "/home/myusername/proj/test" if (fs::is_directory(data_dir)) // true - is directory if (fs::is_directory(fs::status(data_dir))) // true - it is still a directory ``` Fun part: ``` if (fs::exists(fs::status(data_dir))) // true - directory exists if (fs::exists( data_dir )) // true…

Accepted Answer

The following is from the Boost source code:

```
inline bool is_directory( file_status f ) { return f.type() == directory_file; }
inline bool exists( file_status f )       { return f.type() != status_unknown && f.type() != file_not_found; }
```

As you can see, if `is_directory` returns true then `exists` must return true as well. Maybe the problem is elsewhere in your code - please post a minimal compilable example that shows the problem.

You may also want to try using the same `file_status` object for both calls, to see if maybe the output `status` was changing.

boost::filesystem exists() on directory path fails, but is_directory() is ok

Solution

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