Assuming a file & a folder does exist, I want a function to check if the file is contained by the folder.
For example: /a/b contains /a/b/c/d.e, /a/b contains /a/b/c.d, /a/b does not contain /a/b/../c/d.e.
What I get now is to normalize the path, then compare the prefix part. Is there some clean and simple way to do this?
I will assume that the file path is something like this: C:\Program Files\Important\data\app.exe while the folder path is something like this: C:\Program Files And so for that you may want to try this code:
#include <iostream> #include <string> using namespace std; int main() { string filePath, folderPath; cout << "Insert the full file path along with its name" << endl; getline(cin,filePath); //using getline since a path can have spaces cout << "Insert the full file folder path" << endl; getline(cin,folderPath); if(filePath.find(folderPath) != string::npos) { cout << "yes"; } else { cout << "yes"; } return 0; } Only from C++17 there std::filesystem API which has such capability.
For earlier C++ version you have to fall back to boost or system specific library.
Sadly std::filesystem::path doesn't have direct method, but this should do the job:
using std::filesystem::path; path normalized_trimed(const path& p) { auto r = p.lexically_normal(); if (r.has_filename()) return r; return r.parent_path(); } bool is_subpath_of(const path& base, const path& sub) { auto b = normalized_trimed(base); auto s = normalized_trimed(sub).parent_path(); auto m = std::mismatch(b.begin(), b.end(), s.begin(), s.end()); return m.first == b.end(); } 
/a/bis a soft link to/q/r/sthen/a/c/d.e≠/q/r/s/c/d.eon the file system.