File IO

Articles about doing file IO in .NET: creating files, updating files, deleting files, searching directories, searching file content, and more.

C# – Get temp folder path and create a temp file

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You can use Path.GetTempPath() to get the user’s temp folder path. Here’s an example: I’m running this in Windows, so it outputs my temp folder path: Path.GetTempPath() gets the temp folder path by checking environment variables (TMP, TEMP, USERPROFILE). It falls back to returning the system temp folder. Create a temp file Once you have … Read more

C# – Get all files in a folder

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There are two simple ways to get all files in a folder: I’ll show examples below, along with a few other scenarios, such as getting files from subfolders. Note: ‘directory’ and ‘folder’ mean the same thing. I use these terms interchangeably. Get all files with Directory.GetFiles() Directory.GetFiles() returns all file paths from the top-level folder … Read more

C# – Delete all files in a directory

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Use Directory.EnumerateFiles() to get a directory’s files and then delete them with File.Delete() in a loop: This deletes the root directory’s files without deleting the directory itself. I’ll show more examples. Delete all files with a specific extension Use Directory.EnumerateFiles’ searchPattern pattern to get files with a specific extension. Here’s an example of deleting all … Read more

C# – How to make a file read-only

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There are two ways to programmatically make a file read-only: Here’s an example showing both ways to make a file read-only: Using File.SetAttributes() is useful when you want to manage all of file’s attributes at once. FileAttributes is an enum flag, so you can use bitwise operations to add/remove multiple attributes at once. That’s why … Read more

C# – How to set permissions for a directory (Windows only)

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When you want to set permissions for a directory (and its files/subdirectories), you can use DirectoryInfo.GetAccessControl() to get the directory’s security, add/modify/remove access control rules, and then use DirectoryInfo.SetAccessControl() to apply the changes. Access control rules are a complex combination of different settings. So before jumping into setting the permissions programmatically, I suggest taking a … Read more

C# – How to delete a directory

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The simplest way to delete a directory is by using Directory.Delete() (in System.IO). Here are a few examples: You have to specify the path of the directory to delete. This can be an absolute or relative path. You can pass in a recursive flag, which tells it to delete everything in the directory (files and … Read more

C# – How to create directories

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You can use Directory.CreateDirectory() to create a directory at the specified path (absolute or relative), like this: This creates the directory if it doesn’t exist, otherwise it does nothing. That means you don’t need to check if the directory exists before calling Directory.CreateDirectory(). In this article, I’ll go into more details about using Directory.CreateDirectory(). CreateDirectory() … Read more

C# – How to update a file’s contents

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There are three ways to update a file’s content: Which option you pick depends on the file’s format and size. For example, if you’re writing to an existing CSV file, you’d append new lines to the end of the file. If you’re updating a JSON file, you’d read all the JSON content, make changes, then … Read more

C# – Search for files in a directory

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Use Directory.EnumerateFiles() to search for files in a directory and then loop over the results. Here’s an example of searching for files containing “hello” in the file name: Note: Use the wildcard character * to match anything. It returns an IEnumerable<string> containing the full file paths. Here’s what this example outputs: Use Directory.GetFiles() if you … Read more

C# – How to read a text file

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The simplest way to read a text file is by using a high-level method in the .NET File API (in System.IO), such as File.ReadAllText(). These high-level methods abstract away the details of opening a file stream, reading it with StreamReader, and closing the file. Here’s an example of reading a text file’s content into a … Read more

C# – How to create a file and write to it

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There are a few ways to create a file and write to it using the .NET File API (in System.IO). The simplest way is to use high-level methods like File.WriteAllText() and File.WriteAllLines(), specifying the file path and string(s) to write to the file. Here’s an example of using these (and their async equivalents): These high-level … Read more

C# – How to delete a file

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You can use System.IO.File.Delete() to delete a file by specifying its relative or absolute path. Here’s an example: Note: Unlike other methods in the File API, there’s no async version of File.Delete(). If the specified file exists and the permissions are right, then File.Delete() deletes the file as expected. If there’s a problem, it throws … Read more

C# – Check if a directory is empty

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The simplest way to check if a directory is empty is by calling Directory.EnumerateFileSystemEntries(). If this doesn’t return anything, then the directory doesn’t have any files or subdirectories (folders), which means it’s empty. Here’s an example: Another situation to consider is when a directory has no files but might have empty subdirectories (folders). You can … Read more

C# – How to use FileSystemWatcher

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You can use the FileSystemWatcher class to detect file system changes, such as when a file is created, deleted, modified, or renamed. When a change happens, it raises an event that you can handle. This is an event-based alternative to polling for file changes. In this article, I’ll show how to use FileSystemWatcher to detect … Read more