gulrak/filesystem

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

1559 stars · 203 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

A header-only, single-file C++ library that implements the C++17 std::filesystem API, usable from C++11 through C++20. It closely follows the standard with documented exceptions and runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, and additional platforms like Android, iOS, and Emscripten.

Use cases

• use std::filesystem APIs in a C++11 or C++14 project
• polyfill for std::filesystem on compilers without C++17 support
• portable file and directory operations across Windows, macOS, and Linux
• single-header C++ library for manipulating paths and directories
• drop-in filesystem namespace for mixed C++ standard codebases
• cross-platform C++ code that needs directory iteration and file metadata

When to choose

• you need std::filesystem-style code but must target pre-C++17 toolchains
• you want one dependency-free header that works across Windows, macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD
• you prefer header-only libraries with no build system integration required
• you are migrating a codebase toward std::filesystem incrementally

When to avoid

• you compile with C++17 or later and can use the standard std::filesystem directly
• you need behavior beyond the documented deviations from the C++17 standard
• you require full symlink or permission semantics on platforms with known gaps, such as Windows
• you need a filesystem abstraction with extra features beyond the standard API

Facets

library · maturity stable

file-system developer-tools cross-platform files cpp cross-platform windows bsd header-only single-header polyfill std-filesystem cpp11 cpp14 cpp17 cpp20 ghc-filesystem portable no-build-step macos linux android ios

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