I want to open a file for reading. However, in the context of this program, it's OK if the file doesn't exist, I just move on. I want to be able to identify when the error is "file not found" and when the error is otherwise. Otherwise means I need to quit and error.
I don't see an obvious way to do this with fstream.
I can do this with C's open() and perror(). I presumed that there was a fstream way to do this as well.
EDIT: I've been notified that this does not necessarily indicate a file does not exist, as it may be flagged due to access permissions or other issues as well.
I know I'm extremely late in answering this, but I figured I'd leave a comment anyway for anyone browsing. You can use ifstream's fail indicator to tell if a file exists.
ifstream myFile("filename.txt"); if(myFile.fail()){ //File does not exist code here } //otherwise, file exists 
fail() does not indicate "file does not exist", it just indicates "something is wrong". In your particular example it can be "access denied" or "sharing violation" etc.
I don't think you can know if "the file doesn't exist". You could use is_open() for generic checking:
ofstream file(....); if(!file.is_open()) { // error! maybe the file doesn't exist. } If you are using boost you could use boost::filesystem:
#include <boost/filesystem.hpp> int main() { boost::filesystem::path myfile("test.dat"); if( !boost::filesystem::exists(myfile) ) { // what do you want to do if the file doesn't exist } } 
boost::filesystem::exists has been added in C++17 as std::filesystem::exists.Since the result of opening a file is OS-specific, I don't think standard C++ has any way to differentiate the various types of errors. The file either opens or it doesn't.
You can try opening the file for reading, and if it doesn't open (ifstream::is_open() returns false), you know it either doesn't exist or some other error happened. Then again, if you try to open it for writing afterwards and it fails, that might fall under the "something else" category.
errno to ENOENT as distinct from EACCESS or other errors.
fopen from the C standard library). C++ may not currently expose such a thing, but there's no reason it couldn't or shouldn't. I was mostly responding to a vague sense of "this is the way it has to be" that I got from your answer's phrasing.A simple way from http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/general/1796/
ifstream ifile(filename); if (ifile) { // The file exists, and is open for input } 
!ifile.fail(). if(!ifile) is equivalent to ifile.fail().You can use stat, which should be portable across platforms and is in the standard C library:
#include <sys/stat.h> bool FileExists(string filename) { struct stat fileInfo; return stat(filename.c_str(), &fileInfo) == 0; } If stat returns 0, the file (or directory) exists, otherwise it doesn't. I assume that you'll have to have access permissions on all directories in the file's path. I haven't tested portability, but this page suggests it shouldn't be an issue.
fstream's open() got to actually opening a file the file may have been already gone (deleted by another process in the system).A better way:
std::ifstream stream; stream.exceptions(std::ifstream::failbit | std::ifstream::badbit); stream.open(fileName, std::ios::binary); 
With C++17 you can use std::filesystem::exists.
if (!fs::exists(fileName)) { // error! file doesn't exist. } Straight way without creating ifstream object.
if (!std::ifstream(filename)) { // error! file doesn't exist. } 
ifstream object, just one that goes out of scope as soon as the if statement is finished