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FileInfo Class

Provides instance methods for the creation, copying, deletion, moving, and opening of files, and aids in the creation of FileStream objects. This class cannot be inherited.

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

Syntax

public sealed class FileInfo

Remarks

Use the FileInfo class for typical operations such as copying, moving, renaming, creating, opening, deleting, and appending to files.

Many of the FileInfo methods return other I/O types when you create or open files. You can use these other types to further manipulate a file. For more information, see specific FileInfo members such as Open, OpenRead, OpenText, CreateText, or Create.

If you are going to reuse an object several times, consider using the instance method of FileInfo instead of the corresponding static methods of the File class, because a security check will not always be necessary.

By default, full read/write access to new files is granted to all users.

The following table describes the enumerations that are used to customize the behavior of various FileInfo methods.

Enumeration Description
FileAccess Specifies read and write access to a file.
FileShare Specifies the level of access permitted for a file that is already in use.
FileMode Specifies whether the contents of an existing file are preserved or overwritten, and whether requests to create an existing file cause an exception.

Note

In members that accept a path as an input string, that path must be well-formed or an exception is raised. For example, if a path is fully qualified but begins with a space, the path is not trimmed in methods of the class. Therefore, the path is malformed and an exception is raised. Similarly, a path or a combination of paths cannot be fully qualified twice. For example, "c:\temp c:\windows" also raises an exception in most cases. Ensure that your paths are well-formed when using methods that accept a path string.

In members that accept a path, the path can refer to a file or just a directory. The specified path can also refer to a relative path or a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path for a server and share name. For example, all the following are acceptable paths:

  • "c:\\MyDir\\MyFile.txt" in C#
  • "c:\\MyDir" in C#
  • "MyDir\\MySubdir" in C#
  • \\\\MyServer\\MyShare" in C#

Version Information

Available in .NET Micro Framework version 3.0 and above.

See Also

Reference

FileInfo Members
System.IO Namespace