GetFiles(System.String,System.IO.SearchOption)

Returns a file list from the current directory matching the given search pattern and using a value to determine whether to search subdirectories.

Syntax

public FileInfo[] GetFiles (string searchPattern, SearchOption searchOption)

Parameters

searchPattern
The search string to match against the names of files. This parameter can contain a combination of valid literal path and wildcard (* and ?) characters (see Remarks), but doesn't support regular expressions. The default pattern is "*", which returns all files.
searchOption
One of the enumeration values that specifies whether the search operation should include only the current directory or all subdirectories.

Returns

An array of type System.IO.FileInfo.

Remarks

The DirectoryInfo.EnumerateFiles and DirectoryInfo.GetFiles methods differ as follows:

When you use DirectoryInfo.EnumerateFiles, you can start enumerating the collection of System.IO.FileInfo objects before the whole collection is returned.
When you use DirectoryInfo.GetFiles, you must wait for the whole array of System.IO.FileInfo objects to be returned before you can access the array.

Therefore, when you are working with many files and directories, DirectoryInfo.EnumerateFiles can be more efficient.

If there are no files in the System.IO.DirectoryInfo, this method returns an empty array.

The following wildcard specifiers are permitted in searchPattern.


*	Zero or more characters.
?	Exactly one character.

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

Wildcards are permitted. For example, the searchPattern string "*.txt" searches for all file names having an extension of "txt". The searchPattern string "s*" searches for all file names beginning with the letter "s". If there are no files, or no files that match the searchPattern string in the System.IO.DirectoryInfo, this method returns an empty array.

Note:

When using the asterisk wildcard character in a searchPattern (for example, "*.txt"), the matching behavior varies depending on the length of the specified file extension. A searchPattern with a file extension of exactly three characters returns files with an extension of three or more characters, where the first three characters match the file extension specified in the searchPattern. A searchPattern with a file extension of one, two, or more than three characters returns only files with extensions of exactly that length that match the file extension specified in the searchPattern. When using the question mark wildcard character, this method returns only files that match the specified file extension. For example, given two files in a directory, "file1.txt" and "file1.txtother", a search pattern of "file?.txt" returns only the first file, while a search pattern of "file*.txt" returns both files.

The following list shows the behavior of different lengths for the searchPattern parameter:

"*.abc" returns files having an extension of.abc,.abcd,.abcde,.abcdef, and so on.
"*.abcd" returns only files having an extension of.abcd.
"*.abcde" returns only files having an extension of.abcde.
"*.abcdef" returns only files having an extension of.abcdef.

Note:

Because this method checks against file names with both the 8.3 file name format and the long file name format, a search pattern similar to "*1*.txt" may return unexpected file names. For example, using a search pattern of "*1*.txt" will return "longfilename.txt" because the equivalent 8.3 file name format would be "longf~1.txt".

This method pre-populates the values of the following System.IO.FileInfo properties:

[The 'ordered' type of list has not been implemented in the ECMA stylesheet.]

Requirements

Namespace: System.IO
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)
Assembly Versions: 2.0.0.0, 4.0.0.0
Since: .NET 2.0