The best way to test to see if a path is a file or directory

[aewarnick]

I am using Directory.Exists to test if a path is a dir or a file. I am sure it is one of the worst ways to do this.

 

Does anyone know of a better way to see if a path is a file or directory?

[Robby]

Directory.Exists and File.Exists are fine to use, unless someone knows a better method. (I don't)

[philprice]

its fine for me.

[aewarnick]

See, the problem with doing it that way is that if the directory does not exist then things will get messed up because I am assuming that it is a file. I know I can use that and still work around it but I think there should be a better way.

 

I saw someone use bytes to determine if a path was a file or directory but I don't know if that is the best way either because if the file is empty then it will be 0 bytes just like the directory.

 

But I really don't know how they used bytes to determine that, so I may be completely wrong. I would think that a folder has some attribute that no file has and that is what should be tested for. But I don't know. Please help.

[Robby]

hmm?

 

Check if a directory exists with Directory.Exists then if true use File.Exists to see if the file exists, else create the directory, then create the file.

[aewarnick]

Yes, that is exactly what I was talking about when I said,

"I know I can use that and still work around it but I think there should be a better way."

Maybe that is the best way. I don't know.

[philprice]

I know there was a DLL you could link to in vb6 (IMGHLP.DLL i think) that had a fuction that would create a path if it didnt exist, how ever many subdirs, do you want this?

[Nerseus]

Two lines of code is one of the worst ways to do something? :p

 

I think it's pretty convenient considering that in VB6, before FileSystemObject, you had to try and open a file and trap for an error just to see if the file existed... :)

 

-Nerseus

[divil]

Not true! You could use the Dir$ function :)

[Nerseus]

I thought there was an issue with Dir$ but I can't think of it offhand... (maybe not detecting system files or something similar?)

 

Glad you know about Dir$ - it's Awesome! Too bad it didn't include the ability to search through subdirectories recursively :)

 

-Nerseus

[aewarnick]

Ok, so I got my answer, there is no better way. I just thought that it was too primitive...