How do I check if the file exists by its relative path? e.g. `existingDir/nonExistingDir/../existing...

# kotlin-native

[Big Chungus]

How do I check if the file exists by its relative path? e.g. existingDir/nonExistingDir/../existingFile always return false with both, access ans stat

[napperley]

I'm assuming you are talking about Linux. In that case you should use the fopen function ( https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/fopen.3.html ) from the POSIX library (automatically included with all Kotlin Native Linux targets), which will return null if the file doesn't exist. Do note that the function does accept a relative path (relative to the Working Directory).

[Big Chungus]

Hmm, seems a bit redundant to open a file only to close it right after.

[Big Chungus]

On a side note, is there a way to convert relative path to nonexistent file to absolute? realpath returns null on nonexistent files.

[napperley]

The fopen function technique is slightly cumbersome, however it is very simple to use and gets the job done in a very short space of time.

[napperley]

There isn't anything for converting a relative path to an absolute path. One could work around this by using the getcwd function ( https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/getcwd.3.html ), and append the relative path to what is returned from the function.

[napperley]

Are you using Symbolic Links?

[Big Chungus]

No no symlinks, just trying to build File api for native

[Big Chungus]

Also getcwd doesn't really help as this would still not expand .. and . properly

[napperley]

Everyone seems to be building their own File IO type API for Kotlin Native 😆 . Waiting for KotlinX IO ( https://github.com/Kotlin/kotlinx-io ) to gain File IO support.

[Big Chungus]

Gotta do something to get things moving until that one's ready 😀