C# 4 and .NET 4

774 ❘ ChaPTer 29 mAnipulAtinG files And the reGistry
(continued)
ProPerTy
LastAccessTime
LastWriteTime
Name
Root (DirectoryInfo only)
Length (FileInfo only)
desCriPTion
Time the fi le or folder was last accessed
Time the fi le or folder was last modifi ed
Name of the fi le or folder
The root portion of the path
The size of the fi le in bytes
You can also perform actions on the fi le system object using the methods in the following table.
meThod
Create()
Delete()
MoveTo()
CopyTo()
GetDirectories()
GetFiles()
GetFileSystemInfos()
PurPose
Creates a folder or empty fi le of the given name. For a FileInfo this also
returns a stream object to let you write to the fi le. (Streams are covered later in
this chapter.)
Deletes the fi le or folder. For folders, there is an option for the Delete to be
recursive.
Moves and/or renames the fi le or folder.
(FileInfo only) Copies the fi le. Note that there is no copy method for folders. If
you are copying complete directory trees you will need to individually copy each
fi le a n d c r e a te n e w f o ld e r s co r r e s p o n d in g to t h e o ld f o ld e r s .
(DirectoryInfo only) Returns an array of DirectoryInfo objects
representing all folders contained in this folder.
(DirectoryInfo only) Returns an array of FileInfo objects representing all
fi le s co n t a in e d in t h is f o ld e r.
(DirectoryInfo only) Returns FileInfo and DirectoryInfo objects
representing all objects contained in this folder, as an array of FileSystemInfo
references.
Note that these tables list the main properties and methods and are not intended to be exhaustive.
The preceding tables do not list most of the properties or methods that allow you to
write to or read the data in fi les. This is actually done using stream objects, which are
covered later in this chapter. FileInfo also implements a number of methods — Open(),
OpenRead(), OpenText(), OpenWrite(), Create(), and CreateText() — that return
stream objects for this purpose.
Interestingly, the creation time, last access time, and last write time are all writable:
// displays the creation time of a file,
// then changes it and displays it again
FileInfo test = new FileInfo(@"C:\MyFile.txt");
Console.WriteLine(test.Exists.ToString());
Console.WriteLine(test.CreationTime.ToString());
test.CreationTime = new DateTime(2010, 1, 1, 7, 30, 0);
Console.WriteLine(test.CreationTime.ToString());
Running this application produces results similar to the following:
True
2/5/2009 2:59:32 PM
1/1/2010 7:30:00 AM
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