The best way to test to see if a path is a file or directory

[aewarnick]

I am using Directory.Exists to test if a path is a dir or a file. I am sure it is one of the worst ways to do this.

Does anyone know of a better way to see if a path is a file or directory?

 

[Robby]

Directory.Exists and File.Exists are fine to use, unless someone knows a better method. (I dont)

 

[philprice]

its fine for me.

 

[aewarnick]

See, the problem with doing it that way is that if the directory does not exist then things will get messed up because I am assuming that it is a file. I know I can use that and still work around it but I think there should be a better way.

I saw someone use bytes to determine if a path was a file or directory but I dont know if that is the best way either because if the file is empty then it will be 0 bytes just like the directory.

But I really dont know how they used bytes to determine that, so I may be completely wrong. I would think that a folder has some attribute that no file has and that is what should be tested for. But I dont know. Please help.

 

[Robby]

hmm?

Check if a directory exists with Directory.Exists then if true use File.Exists to see if the file exists, else create the directory, then create the file.

 

[aewarnick]

Yes, that is exactly what I was talking about when I said,
"I know I can use that and still work around it but I think there should be a better way."
Maybe that is the best way. I dont know.

 

[philprice]

I know there was a DLL you could link to in vb6 (IMGHLP.DLL i think) that had a fuction that would create a path if it didnt exist, how ever many subdirs, do you want this?

 

[Nerseus]

Two lines of code is one of the worst ways to do something?

I think its pretty convenient considering that in VB6, before FileSystemObject, you had to try and open a file and trap for an error just to see if the file existed...

-Nerseus

 

[Divil]

Not true! You could use the Dir$ function

 

[Nerseus]

I thought there was an issue with Dir$ but I cant think of it offhand... (maybe not detecting system files or something similar?)

Glad you know about Dir$ - its Awesome! Too bad it didnt include the ability to search through subdirectories recursively

-Nerseus

 

[aewarnick]

Ok, so I got my answer, there is no better way. I just thought that it was too primitive...