C# Search for subdirectory (not for files)...

Question

Every example I see seems to be for recursively getting files in subdirectories uses files only. What I'm trying to do is search a folder for a particular subdirectory named "xxx" then save that path to a variable so I can use it for other things.

Is this possible without looping through all the directories and comparing by name?

Answer 1

Yes, I believe that the only available solution (short of third party libraries) is a recursive search for the directory via name comparison.

Answer 2

You can use Windows Search which provides api for .Net too. Here is more detailed information: Windows Search 4.0 for Developers

Answer 3

Well

Directory.GetDirectories(root);

will return you an array of the subdirectories.

You can then use Linq to find the one you're interested in:

IEnumerable<string> list = Directory.GetDirectories(root).Where(s => s.Equals("test"));

which isn't a loop in your code, but is still a loop nevertheless. So the ultimate answer is that "no you can't find a folder 'test' without looping".

You could add .SingleOrDefault() to the Linq, but that would depend on what you wanted to do if your "test" folder couldn't be found.

If you change the GetDirectories call to include the SearchOption SearchOption.AllDirectories then it will do the recursion for you as well. Obviously in this case the call could return more than one item if there was more than one folder named "test" in your directory tree.

Answer 4

First of all, "No, it is not possible without looping through all the directories and comparing by name".

I believe your real question is "Is there an existing API which will handle looping through all the directories and comparing by name for me?"

Yes, there is. It's called Directory.Exists():

var xxxPath = Path.Combine(parentFolder, "xxx");
if (Directory.Exists(xxxPath))
    savedPath = xxxPath;