QFile / QTextStream don't show error on delete file being written to

Question

I am writing to a QFile using a QTextStream, and all works great. I'm trying to create some error detection, so I tried deleting the output file between writes.

Strangle, Qtextstream's status continues to show 0 (no error), and QFile's error method returns 0. yet the file is gone, and text written is being lost...gone

What's going on? How can I detect the failure to write? Am I looking at the wrong methods?

Answer 1

Not sure about Windows, but on Linux and most Unix-type systems, the scenario you describe is simply not an error at all from the OS's point of view - it's perfectly legal to continue writing to a file that has been deleted (and it "works", data is still shuffled to/from the filesystem - this file is still there in the filesystem until the last handle to it is closed).

(I believe that on Windows you'll get an error if you try to delete the file while it's in use, at least if it was open with the default open mode - not 100% sure though.)

If you need to check for "file deleted", you'll need to write those checks yourself.