C# – Method to get all files within folder and subfolders that will return a list

cdirectoryfilemethodsrecursion

I have a method that will iterate through a folder and all of its subfolders and get a list of the file paths. However, I could only figure out how to create it and add the files to a public List, but not how to return the list. Here's the method:

public List<String> files = new List<String>();

private void DirSearch(string sDir)
    {
        try
        {
            foreach (string f in Directory.GetFiles(sDir))
            {
                files.Add(f);
            }
            foreach (string d in Directory.GetDirectories(sDir))
            {
                DirSearch(d);
            }
        }
        catch (System.Exception excpt)
        {
            MessageBox.Show(excpt.Message);
        }
    }

So, i just call DirSearch() at some point in my code and it 'fills' the list with the paths, but I want to be able to use it multiple times to create different lists with different directories, etc.

Best Answer

You can use Directory.GetFiles to replace your method.

 Directory.GetFiles(dirPath, "*", SearchOption.AllDirectories)

Related Solutions

C++ – How to get the list of files in a directory using C or C++

UPDATE 2017:

In C++17 there is now an official way to list files of your file system: std::filesystem. There is an excellent answer from Shreevardhan below with this source code (This code may throw):

#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <filesystem>
namespace fs = std::filesystem;

int main()
{
    std::string path = "/path/to/directory";
    for (const auto & entry : fs::directory_iterator(path))
        std::cout << entry.path() << std::endl;
}

Old Answer:

In small and simple tasks I do not use boost, I use dirent.h. It is available as a standard header in UNIX, and also available for Windows via a compatibility layer created by Toni Ronkko.

DIR *dir;
struct dirent *ent;
if ((dir = opendir ("c:\\src\\")) != NULL) {
  /* print all the files and directories within directory */
  while ((ent = readdir (dir)) != NULL) {
    printf ("%s\n", ent->d_name);
  }
  closedir (dir);
} else {
  /* could not open directory */
  perror ("");
  return EXIT_FAILURE;
}

It is just a small header file and does most of the simple stuff you need without using a big template-based approach like boost(no offence, I like boost!).

C# – How to delete all files and folders in a directory

System.IO.DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo("YourPath");

foreach (FileInfo file in di.GetFiles())
{
    file.Delete(); 
}
foreach (DirectoryInfo dir in di.GetDirectories())
{
    dir.Delete(true); 
}

If your directory may have many files, EnumerateFiles() is more efficient than GetFiles(), because when you use EnumerateFiles() you can start enumerating it before the whole collection is returned, as opposed to GetFiles() where you need to load the entire collection in memory before begin to enumerate it. See this quote here:

Therefore, when you are working with many files and directories, EnumerateFiles() can be more efficient.

The same applies to EnumerateDirectories() and GetDirectories(). So the code would be:

foreach (FileInfo file in di.EnumerateFiles())
{
    file.Delete(); 
}
foreach (DirectoryInfo dir in di.EnumerateDirectories())
{
    dir.Delete(true); 
}

For the purpose of this question, there is really no reason to use GetFiles() and GetDirectories().

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C++ – How to get the list of files in a directory using C or C++

C# – How to delete all files and folders in a directory

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