CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++cwindowsfilefilesystems
Johannes Brodwall
Johannes Brodwall

Reputation: 7821

Hide a file or directory using the Windows API from C

I want to modify a C program to make some of the files it creates hidden in Windows. What Windows or (even better) POSIX API will set the hidden file attribute?

Upvotes: 7

Views: 14657

Answers (4)

JaredPar
JaredPar

Reputation: 754565

You are looking for the GetFileAttributesEx, GetFileAttributes and SetFileAttributes set of methods in the Win32 API.

Starting point of the documentation

Upvotes: 3

Martin Beckett
Martin Beckett

Reputation: 96119

Use CreateFile with the FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN flag

Upvotes: 4

Joey
Joey

Reputation: 354386

Windows and UNIX-like systems have different views on what exactly is a hidden file. On UNIX-likes conventionally file names starting with a dot are considered "hidden". Windows file systems on the other hand have a "hidden" attribute for files.

So for POSIX you should probably just create your files with a starting dot in the file name.

On Windows you can use the SetFileAttributes function.

Upvotes: 8

Rutger Nijlunsing
Rutger Nijlunsing

Reputation: 5001

You can do it by calling SetFileAttributes and setting the FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN flag. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365535%28VS.85%29.aspx

This is not POSIX though. To create a 'hidden' file under a normal POSIX system like Linux, just start a filename with a dot (.).

Upvotes: 13

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