Find files with FindFirst and FindNext

Problem/Question/Abstract:

Find files with FindFirst and FindNext

Answer:

The procedure FindFiles locates files (by a given "filemask") and adds their complete path to a stringlist. Note that recursion is used: FindFiles calls itself at the end of the procedure!

Before calling FindFiles, the stringlist has to be created; afterwards, you must free the stringlist.

In StartDir you pass the starting directory, including the disk drive. In FileMask you pass the name of the file to find, or a file mask. Examples:

FindFiles('c:\', 'letter01.doc')
FindFiles('d:\', 'euroen??.dpr')
FindFiles('d:\projects', '*.dpr')

If you want to test this procedure, start a new project and add some components to the form: two Edits (one for the starting directory, one for the mask), a Button, a TLabel and a ListBox.


implementation
....
var
  FilesList: TStringList;
  ...

  procedure FindFiles(StartDir, FileMask: string);
var
  SR: TSearchRec;
  DirList: TStringList;
  IsFound: Boolean;
  i: integer;
begin
  if StartDir[length(StartDir)] <> '\' then
    StartDir := StartDir + '\';

  { Build a list of the files in directory StartDir
     (not the directories!)                         }

  IsFound :=
    FindFirst(StartDir + FileMask, faAnyFile - faDirectory, SR) = 0;
  while IsFound do
  begin
    FilesList.Add(StartDir + SR.Name);
    IsFound := FindNext(SR) = 0;
  end;
  FindClose(SR);

  // Build a list of subdirectories
  DirList := TStringList.Create;
  IsFound := FindFirst(StartDir + '*.*', faAnyFile, SR) = 0;
  while IsFound do
  begin
    if ((SR.Attr and faDirectory) <> 0) and
      (SR.Name[1] <> '.') then
      DirList.Add(StartDir + SR.Name);
    IsFound := FindNext(SR) = 0;
  end;
  FindClose(SR);

  // Scan the list of subdirectories
  for i := 0 to DirList.Count - 1 do
    FindFiles(DirList[i], FileMask);

  DirList.Free;
end;

procedure TForm1.ButtonFindClick(Sender: TObject);
begin
  FilesList := TStringList.Create;
  FindFiles(EditStartDir.Text, EditFileMask.Text);
  ListBox1.Items.Assign(FilesList);
  LabelCount.Caption := 'Files found: ' + IntToStr(FilesList.Count);
  FilesList.Free;
end;