Derik Whittaker

In today's post I thought it would be fun to use Linq to access the file system.  I thought I would show how to query both for folders and for files.  In each example I will give the non-Linq way and the Linq way.

Searching for a giving Directory (by name)

Non-Linq way

FileInfo[] files = new DirectoryInfo( @"K:\SomeFolder" ).GetFiles();

foreach ( FileInfo file in files )
{
        if ( file.Name == "SomeFileName.txt" )
	{
        	have a match, do something now
	}
}

Linq way

var files = from file in new DirectoryInfo(@"K:\SomeFolder").GetFiles()
	where file.Name == "SomeFileName.txt"
        select file;

Searching for a given File (by name)

Non-Linq way

DirectoryInfo[] di = new DirectoryInfo( @"K:\SomeFolder" ).GetDirectories();

foreach ( DirectoryInfo directoryInfo in di )
{
        if ( directoryInfo.Name == "SubFolderName")
	{
		// have a match, do something now
	}
}

Linq way

var folders = from folder in new DirectoryInfo(@"K:\SomeFolder").GetDirectories()
	where folder.Name == "SubFolderName"
        select folder;

The above Linq code is not better or worse really, just different.  And like I said before, if you are going to be using .Net 3.5, might as well use the new features.

Till next time,