README.md

December 5, 2022 ยท View on GitHub

Simple C# Directory Recursion

Description

This shows and explains how to recursivley add all files, folders, and subfolder to an ArrayList.

More Info

Submitted On
Bybleh
LevelBeginner
User Rating4.8 (19 globes from 4 users)
CompatibilityC#
CategoryFiles
World.Net (C#, VB.net)
Archive File

Source Code

Simple Directory Recursion

Introduction:
One of the things I liked a lot back when I was a VB programmer was the easy directory recursion using the File System Object, a function I use quite a bit in my applications. It became a bit more complex in Delphi (at least, the way I do it), so since I am now learning C#, I figured it would be wise of me to figure it out yet again. I was surprised about how simple it is in C#.

The Code:

using System.IO;
...
// This will be our ArrayList that everything is stored in.
ArrayList sFileList = new ArrayList();
private void recurseDirs(string sPath)
{
	// First we create an instance of DirectoryInfo and point it to the path we passed as a parameter to the function
	DirectoryInfo dirInfo = new DirectoryInfo(sPath);
	// Next, we are adding all files in the current path to the ArrayList.
	sFileList.AddRange(dirInfo.GetFiles());
	// Now we step through all of the directories in dirInfo, add them to the ArrayList, and then call the function again.
	foreach(DirectoryInfo subDirs in dirInfo.GetDirectories())
	{
	  sFileList.Add(subDirs.FullName);
	  recurseDirs(subDirs.FullName);
	}
}

Using This Code:

As shown in the code, make sure to add System.IO to your namespaces. To call this function from your code, simply type

recurseDirs("C:\\Whatever\\Path\\Here\\");

In Conculsion:

Obviously, adding everything to an ArrayList is just an example of what to do with the information. I did notice that it will add all temporary, hidden, and system files and folders to the list. There is a workaround for this using FileAttributes, but since I am still a C# beginner, I haven't figured it out yet.