Checking a file exists in c#

Don't laugh If you want to check for existence and create the file if it doesn't exist, atomically so that there are no race conditions, then use this:.

Use stat. See the man page for stat 2. If it does exist, but you have no read access to the directory where it exists, it will also fail, but in that case any method will fail how can you inspect the content of a directory you may not see according to access rights? Simply, you can't. Oh, as someone else mentioned, you can also use access. I think that access function, which is found in unistd. As your fopen could fail in situations where the file existed but could not be opened as requested.

How are we doing? Please help us improve Stack Overflow. Take our short survey. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. What's the best way to check if a file exists in C? Ask Question.

Asked 13 years, 2 months ago. Active 11 months ago. Viewed k times. Is there a better way than simply trying to open the file? Dave Marshall Dave Marshall 7, 4 4 gold badges 20 20 silver badges 14 14 bronze badges. Do you really just want to check for existence?

Or do you want to check, and write to the file if it doesn't already exist. 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. Skip to main content. This browser is no longer supported.

Download Microsoft Edge More info. Contents Exit focus mode. Exists String Method Reference Is this page helpful? Please rate your experience Yes No. Any additional feedback? 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.

Bool is often used in expressions. Many expressions evaluate to a boolean value. Represented in one byte, the bool type represents truth. True and false are boolean literals. They are values that mean yes and no. They can be stored in variables of type bool in file existing.

The file Exists method checks if the specified file exists. The following code snippet checks if a file exists or not. 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. Next Recommended Reading.

Net Core 6. I don't think this is good solution. At the very least, you should provide a timeout parameter. I think you should try for a limited time and return a failure message if the file wasn't deleted. Delete Path. Combine rootFolder, authorsFile ; Console. WriteLine "File deleted.

Delete file ; Console. This will be the simplest way, if System. Delete filePath ; System. Another way I did is, if System. Collect ; System. WaitForPendingFinalizers ; System. Aniyan Kolathur Aniyan Kolathur 53 10 10 bronze badges. The Overflow Blog. Podcast Making Agile work for data science. Stack Gives Back Featured on Meta. New post summary designs on greatest hits now, everywhere else eventually.

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