C# 4 and .NET 4

772 ❘ ChaPTer 29 mAnipulAtinG files And the reGistry
Object
Class
I Serializable
DriveInfo
Sealed Class
MarshalByRefObject
Abstract Class
Directory
Static Class
File
Static Class
Path
Static Class
I Serializable
FileSystemInfo
Abstract Class
Marshal By Ref Object
DirectoryInfo
Sealed Class
File System Info
FileInfo
Sealed Class
File System Info
figure 29-1
The following list explains the function of these classes:
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System.MarshalByRefObject — This is the base object class for .NET classes that are remotable;
it permits marshaling of data between application domains. The rest of the items in this list are part
of the System.IO namespace.
FileSystemInfo — This is the base class that represents any fi le system object.
FileInfo and File — These classes represent a fi le on the fi le system.
DirectoryInfo and Directory — These classes represent a folder on the fi le system.
Path — This class contains static members that you can use to manipulate pathnames.
DriveInfo — This class provides properties and methods that provide information on a
selected drive.
In Windows, the objects that contain fi les and that are used to organize the fi le system
are termed folders. For example, in the path C:\My Documents\ReadMe.txt, ReadMe
.txt is a fi le and My Documents is a folder. Folder is a very Windows-specifi c term:
on virtually every other operating system the term directory is used in place of folder,
and in accordance with Microsoft’s goal to design .NET as a platform-independent
technology, the corresponding .NET base classes are called Directory and
DirectoryInfo. However, due to the potential for confusion with LDAP directories
(as discussed in the online Chapter 52, “Directory Services”), and because this is a
Windows book, we’ll stick to the term folder in this discussion.
. neT Classes That represent files and folders
You will notice from the previous list that two classes are used to represent a folder and two classes are used
to represent a fi le. Which one of these classes you use depends largely on how many times you need to access
that folder or fi le:
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Directory and File contain only static methods and are never instantiated. You use these classes by
supplying the path to the appropriate fi le system object whenever you call a member method. If you
want to do only one operation on a folder or fi le, using these classes is more effi cient because it saves
the overhead of instantiating a .NET class.
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