Exists Method
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Determines whether the specified file exists.
Namespace: System.IO
Assembly: System.IO (in System.IO.dll)
Syntax
'Declaration
Public Shared Function Exists ( _
path As String _
) As Boolean
public static bool Exists(
string path
)
public:
static bool Exists(
String^ path
)
static member Exists :
path:string -> bool
public static function Exists(
path : String
) : boolean
Parameters
- path
Type: System. . :: . .String
The file to check.
Return Value
Type: System. . :: . .Boolean
true if the caller has the required permissions and path contains the name of an existing file; otherwise, false. This method also returns false if path is nullNothingnullptrunita null reference (Nothing in Visual Basic), an invalid path, or a zero-length string. If the caller does not have sufficient permissions to read the specified file, no exception is thrown and the method returns false regardless of the existence of path.
Remarks
The Exists method should not be used for path validation, this method merely checks if the file specified in path exists. Passing an invalid path to Exists returns false. To check whether the path contains any invalid characters, you can call the GetInvalidPathChars method to retrieve the characters that are invalid for the file system. You can also create a regular expression to test the whether the path is valid for your environment. For examples of acceptable paths, see File.
Be aware that another process can potentially do something with the file in between the time you call the Exists method and perform another operation on the file, such as Delete.
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 GetCurrentDirectory.
If path describes a directory, this method returns false. Trailing spaces are removed from the path parameter before determining if the file exists.
The Exists method returns false if any error occurs while trying to determine if the specified file exists. This can occur in situations that raise exceptions such as passing a file name with invalid characters or too many characters, a failing or missing disk, or if the caller does not have permission to read the file.
.NET Framework Security
- Full trust for the immediate caller. This member cannot be used by partially trusted code. For more information, see dd66cd4c-b087-415f-9c3e-94e3a1835f74.