std::filesystem::path::extension(3)

NAME
std::filesystem::path::extension - std::filesystem::path::extension

Synopsis
   path extension() const; (since C++17)
   Returns the extension of the filename component of the generic-format view of *this.
   If the filename() component of the generic-format path contains a period (.), and is
   not one of the special filesystem elements dot or dot-dot, then the extension is the
   substring beginning at the rightmost period (including the period) and until the end
   of the pathname.
   If the first character in the filename is a period, that period is ignored (a
   filename like ".profile" is not treated as an extension).
   If the pathname is either . or .., or if filename() does not contain the '.'
   character, then empty path is returned.
   Additional behavior may be defined by the implementations for file systems which
   append additional elements (such as alternate data streams or partitioned dataset
   names) to extensions.

Parameters
   (none)

Return value
   The extension of the current pathname or an empty path if there's no extension.

Exceptions
   May throw implementation-defined exceptions.

Notes
   The extension as returned by this function includes a period to make it possible to
   distinguish the file that ends with a period (function returns ".") from a file with
   no extension (function returns "").
   On a non-POSIX system, it is possible that p.stem() + p.extension() != p.filename()
   even though generic-format versions are the same.

Example
// Run this code
 #include <filesystem>
 #include <iostream>
 namespace fs = std::filesystem;
 int main()
 {
     std::cout << fs::path("/foo/bar.txt").extension() << '\n'
               << fs::path("/foo/bar.").extension() << '\n'
               << fs::path("/foo/bar").extension() << '\n'
               << fs::path("/foo/bar.txt/bar.cc").extension() << '\n'
               << fs::path("/foo/bar.txt/bar.").extension() << '\n'
               << fs::path("/foo/bar.txt/bar").extension() << '\n'
               << fs::path("/foo/.").extension() << '\n'
               << fs::path("/foo/..").extension() << '\n'
               << fs::path("/foo/.hidden").extension() << '\n'
               << fs::path("/foo/..bar").extension() << '\n';
 }

Output:
 ".txt"
 "."
 ""
 ".cc"
 "."
 ""
 ""
 ""
 ""
 ".bar"

See also
   filename returns the filename path component
                     (public member function)
                     returns the stem path component (filename without the final
   stem extension)
                     (public member function)
   replace_extension replaces the extension
                     (public member function)
   has_extension checks if the corresponding path element is not empty
                     (public member function)