Checking if a file is a directory or just a file

Question

I'm writing a program to check if something is a file or is a directory. Is there a better way to do it than this?

#include <stdio.h>

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <errno.h>

int isFile(const char* name)
{
    DIR* directory = opendir(name);

    if(directory != NULL)
    {
     closedir(directory);
     return 0;
    }

    if(errno == ENOTDIR)
    {
     return 1;
    }

    return -1;
}

int main(void)
{
    const char* file = "./testFile";
    const char* directory = "./";

    printf("Is %s a file? %s.\n", file,
     ((isFile(file) == 1) ? "Yes" : "No"));

    printf("Is %s a directory? %s.\n", directory,
     ((isFile(directory) == 0) ? "Yes" : "No"));

    return 0;
}

Answer 1

You can call the stat() function and use the S_ISREG() macro on the st_mode field of the stat structure in order to determine if your path points to a regular file:

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int is_regular_file(const char *path)
{
    struct stat path_stat;
    stat(path, &path_stat);
    return S_ISREG(path_stat.st_mode);
}

Note that there are other file types besides regular and directory, like devices, pipes, symbolic links, sockets, etc. You might want to take those into account.