Recursively searching directories for a file - c

Question

I'm trying to recursively search a directory for a file and output the file if it matches the given:
static int *search(char *path, const char *request, int depth, bool verbose)
{
DIR *dir;
struct dirent *ent;
char *start_dir = strcmp(path, "/") == 0 ? "root" : path;
printf("\nStarting in '%s' directory..\n\n", start_dir);
if ((dir = opendir(path)) != NULL)
{
while ((ent = readdir(dir)) != NULL)
{
if (verbose == true)
{
printf("Searching directory %s for file %s\n", ent->d_name, request);
}
if (ent->d_type == DT_DIR)
{
if ((strlen(path) + strlen(ent->d_name) + 1) > PATH_MAX)
{
puts("Path to long, cannot continue..");
}
else
{
if (ent->d_name == DT_DIR && strcmp(ent->d_name, ".") != 0 &&
strcmp(ent->d_name, "..") != 0 )
{
printf("%s\n", ent->d_name);
}
}
}
}
}
return 0;
}
This will work but it will not output the files or directories inside of the directory. Example:
#ubuntu:~/bin/c/find-files$ ./utilis test / -V
Initialized to search for file: 'test'..
Starting in 'root' directory..
Searching directory vmlinuz.old for file test
Searching directory boot for file test
Searching directory home for file test
Searching directory libx32 for file test
Searching directory lib32 for file test
Searching directory lib64 for file test
Searching directory initrd.img for file test
Searching directory srv for file test
Searching directory usr for file test
Searching directory . for file test
Searching directory cdrom for file test
Searching directory tmp for file test
Searching directory initrd.img.old for file test
Searching directory bin for file test
Searching directory .. for file test
Searching directory proc for file test
Searching directory lib for file test
Searching directory var for file test
Searching directory dev for file test
Searching directory sys for file test
Searching directory media for file test
Searching directory root for file test
Searching directory snap for file test
Searching directory run for file test
Searching directory sbin for file test
Searching directory opt for file test
Searching directory lost+found for file test
Searching directory mnt for file test
Searching directory vmlinuz for file test
Searching directory etc for file test
How can I refactor this function in order to recursively search for the given filename in all directories and sub directories?

Answer 1

As already point out in the comments by many. Your code is not recursive with the missing recursive call (function calling itself). You have a lot of mistake. Not checking for errors with various system calls and forgetting to close the directory stream. I don't know what you want to achieve with your various parameters int depth, bool verbose. But this is another way of looking for a specific file and returning 0 --> EXIT_SUCCESS on success and 1 -->EXIT_FAILURE on failure.
The are various ways things can go wrong when using system calls and some them set errnos, which is important to look at them and print to STDERR
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <string.h>
#define DEBUG 1
static int search(char *path,const char *file){
DIR *dir;
char *slash = "/";
int ret = 1;
struct dirent *entry;
//checking if it failed to open and report errors to STDERR
if((dir = opendir(path)) == NULL){
fprintf(stderr,"opendir: %s\n",strerror(errno));
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
while ((entry = readdir(dir))){
//if is . or .. we continue to prevent winging back and forth
if(strcmp(entry->d_name,".") == 0 || strcmp(entry->d_name,"..") == 0)
continue;
//we check if the path has already a / if not we add one
int length = strlen(path);
if(path[length-1] != '/'){
slash = "/";
}
length += strlen(entry->d_name)+2;
char *newpath = malloc(length);
if (!newpath){
fprintf(stderr,"malloc: %s\n",strerror(errno));
break;
}
snprintf(newpath,length,"%s%s%s",path,slash,entry->d_name);
if(strcmp(entry->d_name,file) ==0){
#if DEBUG
printf("Was found here %s\n",newpath);
#endif
ret = EXIT_SUCCESS;
break;
}
//checking if is a directory to do a recursive call
// using DT_DIR to avoid the use of lstat or stat
// if not directory we free the memory and move on
if(entry->d_type == DT_DIR)
search(newpath,file);
else{
free(newpath);
continue;
}
free(newpath);
}
if(closedir(dir) != 0){
fprintf(stderr,"closedir: %s\n",strerror(errno));
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
return ret;
}
int main() {
char *file = "algo.c";
int ret = search("/",file);
printf("%d The file %s was %s\n",ret,file,(ret == 0 ? "found":"not found"));
return 0;
}
With DEBUG set to 1
Was found here /Users/addodennis/CLionProjects/BluePrint/algo.c
The file algo.c was found
With DEBUG set to 0
file algo.c was found