Getting a list of files of a specific extension in a specified folder in Win32 API for c/c++

Often in a Win32/C/C++ application, we need a function to go through a specific folder and snatch all files matching a specified extension. While there is support for doing so in C# but there is no convenient function to do it in Win32/C/C++. Here I am sharing the function I use quite often in my day to day applications. It might help others also.

 

void GetFileList (std::vector& list, std::string dir, std::string extension)
{
 WIN32_FIND_DATA findData;
 HANDLE fileHandle;
 int flag = 1;
 std::string search ("*.");
 if (dir.length() == 0) dir = ".";
 dir += "/";
 //search = dir + search + extension;
 std::string temp = dir;
 temp.append(search);
 temp.append(extension);
 search = temp;
 // SetCurrentDirectory(dir.c_str());
 fileHandle = FindFirstFile(search.c_str(), &findData);
 
 if (fileHandle == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) return;
 while (flag)
 {
  list.push_back(findData.cFileName);
  flag = FindNextFile(fileHandle, &findData);
 }
 FindClose(fileHandle);
}