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

Returns an enumerable collection of directory information that matches a specified search pattern and search subdirectory option.

Syntax

public IEnumerable<DirectoryInfo> EnumerateDirectories (string searchPattern, SearchOption searchOption)

Parameters

searchPattern
The search string to match against the names of directories. 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. The default value is SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly.

Returns

An enumerable collection of directories that matches searchPattern and searchOption.

Remarks

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 string "*t" searches for all names in ending with the letter "t". ". The searchPattern string "s*" searches for all names in path beginning with the letter "s".

The DirectoryInfo.EnumerateDirectories and DirectoryInfo.GetDirectories methods differ as follows:

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

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

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

The returned collection is not cached; each call to the IEnumerable`1.GetEnumerator method on the collection will start a new enumeration.

Requirements

Namespace: System.IO
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)
Assembly Versions: 4.0.0.0