Posted: 2011-03-15

Category: Snippets

Get the Size of a File in C++

I've sometimes had the need to find the size or length of a file in C++. It's pretty easy, but I figured someone out there could make use of my function. I'm just nice like that.

#include <fstream>

int getFileSize(const std::string &fileName)
{
    ifstream file(fileName.c_str(), ifstream::in | ifstream::binary);

    if(!file.is_open())
    {
        return -1;
    }

    file.seekg(0, ios::end);
    int fileSize = file.tellg();
    file.close();

    return fileSize;
}

The function returns -1 if the file could not be opened.