Renaming a directory in C#

Question

Ok, so admittedly I'm pretty new to C#, but I couldn't find a DirectoryInfo.Rename(To) or FileInfo.Rename(To) method anywhere. It pissed me off, so I wrote my own, and I'm posting it here for anybody to use if they need it, because let's face it : the MoveTo methods are overkill and will always require extra logic if you just want to rename a directory or file :

public static class DirectoryExtensions
{
    public static void RenameTo(this DirectoryInfo di, string name)
    {
        if (di == null)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("di", "Directory info to rename cannot be null");
        }

        if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(name))
        {
            throw new ArgumentException("New name cannot be null or blank", "name");
        }

        di.MoveTo(Path.Combine(di.Parent.FullName, name));

        return; //done
    }
}

Answer 1

You should move it:

Directory.Move(source, destination);

Answer 2

There is no difference between moving and renaming; you should simply call Directory.Move.

In general, if you're only doing a single operation, you should use the static methods in the File and Directory classes instead of creating FileInfo and DirectoryInfo objects.

For more advice when working with files and directories, see here.

Answer 3

One already exists. If you cannot get over the "Move" syntax of the System.IO namespace. There is a static class FileSystem within the Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO namespace that has both a RenameDirectory and RenameFile already within it.