Develop Reference

C# winforms get nth folders from path

I've got an absolute path available to me. Say: C:/Program/CoreFiles/Folder1/Folder2/File.txt.
I need to copy that file to C:/Program/Projects/ProjectName/ but it needs to keep Folder1/Folder2/File.txt intact. So the end result should be C:/Program/Projects/ProjectName/Folder1/Folder2/File.txt.
My first attempt at solving this was to try and get the relative path between 2 absolute paths. Found Path.GetRelativePath(string, string) which obviously didn't help as it wasn't meant for WinForms. It would mess up anyway as the final result would be C:/Program/Projects/ProjectName/CoreFiles/Folder1/Folder2/File.txt.
The target directory is empty and I don't know the relative path to copy beforehand other than somehow getting that info out of the absolute path. Since File.Copy won't create folders that don't exist yet, I need to create them first. So how do I get the path that leads up to the file from the CoreFiles directory out of the absolute path?
The only working solution I can come up with is using regex to just replace CoreFiles with Projects/ProjectName in the path string and work with that. But that somehow seems the wrong approach.

Since you can't use Path.GetRelativePath. I suggest looking at another answer that describes how to do this yourself.
Like here...
How to get relative path from absolute path
Using the method in that answer, you can do the rest of your task as shown below.
string sourcePath = "C:/Program/CoreFiles/Folder1/Folder2/File.txt";
string sourceRoot = "C:/Program/CoreFiles/";
string destinationRoot = "C:/Program/Projects/ProjectName/";
// Use built-in .NET Path.GetRelativePath if you can. Otherwise use a custom function. Like here https://stackoverflow.com/a/340454/1812944
string relativePath = MakeRelativePath(sourceRoot, sourcePath);
// Combine the paths, and make the directory separators all the same.
string destinationPath = Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(destinationRoot, relativePath));
// Create nested folder structure for your files.
Directory.CreateDirectory(Path.GetDirectoryName(destinationPath));
// Copy the file over.
File.Copy(sourcePath, destinationPath);

How is my app finding an old version of an ancillary text file?

I have code that reads encrypted credentials from a text file. I updated that text file to include a connection string. Everything else is read and decrypted fine, but not the connection string (naturally, I updated my code accordingly, too).
So I got to wondering: is it reading the correct file. The answer: No! The file in \bin\debug is dated 6/5/2012 9:41 am, but this code:
using (StreamReader reader = File.OpenText("Credentials.txt")) {
string line = null;
MessageBox.Show(File.GetCreationTime("Credentials.txt").ToString());
...shows 6/4/2012 2:00:44 pm
So I searched my hard drive for all instances of "Credentials.txt" to see where it was reading the file from. It only found one instance, the one with today's date in \bin\debug.
???
Note: Credentials.txt is not a part of my solution; should it be? (IOW, I simply copied it into \bin\debug, I didn't perform an "Add | Existing Item")

Provided you don't change the current directory, the file in bin\Debug is going to be the one being read, as you're not specifying a full path.
The problem is likely due to the differences between the different File dates. The Creation Date (which is what you are fetching and displaying as 6/4 # 2:00:44pm) is likely different from the Date modified (which is what is shown by default in Windows Explorer). This date can be fetched using File.GetLastWriteTime instead of GetCreationTime.
That being said, I would recommend using the full path to the file, and not assuming that the current directory is the same as the executable path. Specifying the full path (which can be determined based on the executable path) will be safer, and less likely to cause problems later. This can be done via:
var exePath = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location);
var file = System.IO.Path.Combine(exePath, "Credentials.txt");
using (StreamReader reader = File.OpenText(file)) { // ...

Get File From an Assembly

I want to read a file path from the following structure
The Structure is like : AssemblyName -> MyFiles (Folder) -> Text.txt
Here I want to get the path of the Text.txt. Please help

I think what you're looking for is a file embedded in the assembly. Check out this question. The first answer explains how to set up an embedded file, as well as how to get it from code.

You can do
string assemblyPath = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location;
string assemblyDirectory = Path.GetDirectoryName(assemblyPath);
string textPath = Path.Combine(assemblyDirectory, "MyFiles", "Test.txt");
string text = File.ReadAllText(textPath);
...just to split it up some...but you could write it all in one line needless to say...
alternatively, if your Environment.CurrentDirectory is already set to the directory of your executing assembly's location, you could just do
File.ReadAllText(Path.Combine("MyFiles", "Text.txt"));

Jeff has covered how you get the path, wrt your comment on his answer is the file you want to open actually included in your project output?
Under the properties pane for the relevant file look at the Copy to Output Directory option - it generally defaults to Do not copy. You will want to set it to Copy Always or Copy if Newer if you want to include a file in the output directory with your compiled program.
As a general note you should always wrap any IO in an appropriate try catch block or use the static File.Exists(path) method to check whether a file exists

C# How to grep the last word from a directory path?

I have a program that "greps" out various directory paths from a log text file and prints various results according to the word.
Examples of Directory paths:
C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Desktop/AccessData FTK Imager.lnk
C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Start Menu/Programs/AccessData
C:/Documents and Settings/Administrator/Desktop/AccessData FTK Imager.exe:Zone.Identifier
Therefore how can I grep out the file or folder name after the last "/"? This is to help the program to identify between files and folder. Please do take note of the multiple "." and white spaces found within a directory paths. etc "Imager.exe:Zone.Identifier". Therefore it is difficult to use if(!name.contains()".")
Etc. How to get the "AccessData FTK Imager.lnk" or "AccessData" or "AccessData FTK Imager.exe:Zone.Identifier" from the path STRING?!
May someone please advise on the methods or codes to solve this problem? Thanks!
The codes:
if (!token[7].Contains("."))
{
Console.WriteLine("The path is a folder?");
Console.WriteLine(token[7]);
Console.WriteLine(actions);
MacActions(actions);
x = 1;
}

Use the Path class when working with file paths, and use the File and Directory class when working with actual files and folders.
string str1=#"C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Desktop/AccessData FTK Imager.lnk";
string str2=#"C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Start Menu/Programs/AccessData";
string str3=#"C:/Documents and Settings/Administrator/Desktop/AccessData FTK Imager.exe:Zone.Identifier";
Console.WriteLine(Path.GetFileName(str1));
Console.WriteLine(Path.GetFileName(str2));
Console.WriteLine(Path.GetFileName(str3));
outputs:
AccessData FTK Imager.lnk
AccessData
Zone.Identifier <-- it chokes here because of the :
This class operates on strings, as I do not have those particular files and/or folders on my system. Also it's impossible to determine whether AccessData is meant to be a folder or a file without an extension.
I could use some common sense and declare everything with an extension to be a file (Path.GetFileExtension can be used here) and everything else to be a folder.
Or I could just check it the string in question is indeed a file or a folder on my machine using (File.Exists and Directory.Exists respectively).
if (File.Exists(str2))
Console.WriteLine("It's a file");
else if (Directory.Exists(str2))
Console.WriteLine("It's a folder");
else
Console.WriteLine("It's not a real file or folder");

Use Path.GetFileName.
The characters after the last directory character in path. If the last character of path is a directory or volume separator character, this method returns String.Empty.

This is to help the program to identify between files and folder
There is no way to determine is a path represents a file or folder, unless you access the actual file system. A directory name like 'Foo.exe' would be perfectly valid, and a file with no extension ('Foobar') would be valid too.

how about tokenized it with "/" like what you're doing ... and then you'll know that the last token is the file, and whatever before it is the path.

You can simply split the whole string by /
e.g.:
string a="C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Desktop/AccessData FTK Imager.lnk";
string[] words=a.split('/');
int len=words.length;
so now words[len] returns the data after last slash(/)..
I hope you understand...

I guess you only have a string that represents the name of the file, if that is the case you can't really be sure. It's totally ok to have a folder namen something like Folder.doc. So if you don't have access to the actual file system it is hard to check. You can get close though using regular expression like:
(.*\\)(.+)(\..*)
Try it on: http://www.regexplanet.com/simple/index.html
If you get any output in group number 3 it's likely that it is a file and not a folder. If you don't get some output try this direct after:
(.*\\)(.+)(\..*)?
That will give you the folder in group 2.

move zip file using file.copy()

I am trying to move a file from server \\abc\\C$\\temp\\coll.zip to another server
\\def\\c$\\temp.
I am trying to use File.Copy(source,destination).
But I am getting the error in source path saying: Couldn't find the part of the path.
I am not sure what is wrong with the source path.

You could use a C# # Verbatim and also use checks in the code like this:
string source = #"\\abc\C$\temp\coll.zip";
string destination = #"\\def\c$\temp\coll.zip";
string destDirectory = Path.GetDirectoryName(destination)
if (File.Exists(source) && Directory.Exists(destDirectory)) {
File.Copy(source, destination);
}
else {
// Throw error or alert
}

Make sure that your "\" characters are escaped if you are using C#. You have to double the backslashes or prefix the string literal with #, like this:
string fileName = #"\\abc\C$\temp\coll.zip";
or
string fileName = "\\\\abc\\C$\\temp\\coll.zip";

looks like you need two backslashes at the beginning:
\\abc\C$\temp\coll.zip
\\def\c$\temp

Make sure you are using a valid UNC Path. UNC paths should start with \ not just . You should also consider using System.IO.File.Exists(filename); before attempting the copy so you can avoid the exception altogether and so your app can handle the missing file gracefully.
Hope this helps

It could be the string you are using for the path. If it is exactly as you have entered here I believe you need double backslashes. "\\" before the server name.

I always use network shares for that kind of work, but UNC path's should be available too.
Don't forget that you need to escape your string when you use \'s. Also, UNC paths most of the time start with a double .
Example:
\\MyComputerName\C$\temp\temp.zip

Actually I missed # before the two strings.The source and the destination path.
That is why it was giving error.