this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
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Is it better to check if a file exists before trying to load it, or to try to load it, and catch the error and move on? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 weeks ago by Binette@lemmy.ml to c/learn_programming@programming.dev
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For context, I am trying to do a save system for a game.

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[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 58 points 2 weeks ago

I’m sorry that you’re getting differing answers to your question, but I strongly feel that you should attempt to load it and handle the error if it does not exist.

The reason is because if you rely on checking first, it’s always possible that something could happen to the file between when you check and when you perform the load. Plus, you should be prepared to handle the exceptional condition in general. What if you have something strange like the file exists but you don’t have permission to read it?

Because you should implement handling for those errors anyway, you might as well use it as your main means of processing a file that doesn’t exist. That is my suggestion. You can still check before trying to load, but you need to handle the case of the file not existing when you’re loading.