Recursive procedure to build a list of files

Find files with FindFirst and FindNext

 Search

The procedure FindFiles locates files in a given directory (folder) and its subdirectories, and adds their complete path to a stringlist. Note that recursion is used: FindFiles calls itself at the end of the procedure!

The meaning of the parameters of FindFiles(FilesList, StartDir, FileMask) is as follows:

FilesList is a stringlist, that you have to create before calling FindFiles. Afterwards, don't forget to free this stringlist.

In StartDir you specify the starting directory, including the disk drive. If you want to search an entire disk, specify the root directory (root folder) of that disk, such as C:\ or D:\

In FileMask you pass the name of the file to find, or a file mask with wildcards, such as ? and *
Examples of use:

Find all files on the entire C: disk with the name 'letter1.doc' : 
   FindFiles('c:\', 'letter01.doc'); 
Find all files on the entire C: disk, with a name starting with 'euroen', followed by zero, one or two other characters, and ending with the extension '.dpr' :
   FindFiles('d:\', 'euroen??.dpr'); 
Find all Delphi project files in directory d:\projects and its subdirectories :
   FindFiles('d:\projects', '*.dpr');
If you want to test this procedure, start a new project and add some components to the form: two Edits (one for the starting directory, one for the mask), a Button, a Label and a ListBox.

implementation
....


// Recursive procedure to build a list of files
procedure FindFiles(FilesList: TStringList; StartDir, FileMask: string);
var
  SR: TSearchRec;
  DirList: TStringList;
  IsFound: Boolean;
  i: integer;
begin
  if StartDir[length(StartDir)] <> '\' then
    StartDir := StartDir + '\';

  { Build a list of the files in directory StartDir
     (not the directories!)                         }

  IsFound :=
    FindFirst(StartDir+FileMask, faAnyFile-faDirectory, SR) = 0;
  while IsFound do begin
    FilesList.Add(StartDir + SR.Name);
    IsFound := FindNext(SR) = 0;
  end;
  FindClose(SR);

  // Build a list of subdirectories
  DirList := TStringList.Create;
  IsFound := FindFirst(StartDir+'*.*', faAnyFile, SR) = 0;
  while IsFound do begin
    if ((SR.Attr and faDirectory) <> 0) and
         (SR.Name[1] <> '.') then
      DirList.Add(StartDir + SR.Name);
    IsFound := FindNext(SR) = 0;
  end;
  FindClose(SR);

  // Scan the list of subdirectories
  for i := 0 to DirList.Count - 1 do
    FindFiles(FilesList, DirList[i], FileMask);

  DirList.Free;
end;

// Example: how to use
FindFiles
procedure TForm1.ButtonFindClick(Sender: TObject);
var
  FilesList: TStringList;
begin
  FilesList := TStringList.Create;
  try
    FindFiles(FilesList, EditStartDir.Text, EditFileMask.Text);
    ListBox1.Items.Assign(FilesList);
    LabelCount.Caption := 'Files found: ' + IntToStr(FilesList.Count);
  finally 
    FilesList.Free;
  end;
end;





http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Tokyo/en/Standard_Routines_and_Input-Output