Parameters

path

The relative or absolute path to the directory to search. This string is not case-sensitive.

searchPattern

The search string to match against the names of file and directories in path. This parameter can contain a combination of valid literal path and wildcard (* and ?) characters (see Remarks), but doesn't support regular expressions.

Returns

An array of file names and directory names that match the specified search criteria, or an empty array if no files or directories are found.

Exceptions

Type	Reason
ArgumentNullException	searchPattern or path is null.
ArgumentException	path is a zero-length string, contains only white space, or contains one or more implementation-specific invalid characters. -or- searchPattern does not contain a valid pattern.
System.Security.SecurityException	The caller does not have the required permission.
System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException	path was not found.
System.IO.PathTooLongException	The length of path or the absolute path information for path exceeds the system-defined maximum length.
System.IO.IOException	path is a file name.
UnauthorizedAccessException	The caller does not have the required permission.

Remarks

The order of the returned file and directory names is not guaranteed; use the erload:System.Array.Sort method if a specific sort order is required.

searchPattern can be a combination of literal and wildcard characters, but doesn't support regular expressions. The following wildcard specifiers are permitted in searchPattern.

* (asterisk)	Zero or more characters in that position.
? (question mark)	Zero or one character in that position.

Characters other than the wildcard are literal characters. For example, the searchPattern string "*t" searches for all names in path ending with the letter "t". The searchPattern string "s*" searches for all names in path beginning with the letter "s".

searchPattern cannot end in two periods ("..") or contain two periods ("..") followed by Path.DirectorySeparatorChar or Path.AltDirectorySeparatorChar, nor can it contain any invalid characters. You can query for invalid characters by using the Path.GetInvalidPathChars method.

Note:

When you use the asterisk wildcard character in a searchPattern such as "*.txt", the number of characters in the specified extension affects the search as follows:

• If the specified extension is exactly three characters long, the method returns files with extensions that begin with the specified extension. For example, "*.xls" returns both "book.xls" and "book.xlsx".

• In all other cases, the method returns files that exactly match the specified extension. For example, "*.ai" returns "file.ai" but not "file.aif".

When you use the question mark wildcard character, this method returns only files that match the specified file extension. For example, given two files, "file1.txt" and "file1.txtother", in a directory, a search pattern of "file?.txt" returns just the first file, whereas a search pattern of "file*.txt" returns both files.

The path parameter is permitted to specify relative or absolute path information. Relative path information is interpreted as relative to the current working directory. To obtain the current working directory, see Directory.GetCurrentDirectory.

The path parameter is not case-sensitive.

For a list of common I/O tasks, see Common I/O Tasks.

Permissions

Requirements