C# How do I extract each folder name from a path?

Question

Hi all,

My path is "\server\folderName1\another name\something\another folder\"

How do I extract each folder name into a string if I don't know how many folders there are in the path and I don't know the folder names?

Many thanks

Answer 1

The quick answer is to use the .Split('\\') method.

Answer 2

string[] folders = path.Split('\\');

Answer 3

Maybe call Directory.GetParent in a loop? That's if you want the full path to each directory and not just the directory names.

Answer 4

string mypath = @"..\folder1\folder2\folder2";
string[] directories = mypath.Split(Path.DirectorySeparatorChar);

Edit: This returns each individual folder in the directories array. You can get the number of folders returned like this:

int folderCount = directories.Length;

Answer 5

Thanks but I don't know how many folders there are, how would you extract an unknown number of folder names?

Thanks

Answer 6

Or, if you need to do something with each folder, have a look at the System.IO.DirectoryInfo class. It also has a Parent property that allows you to navigate to the parent directory.

Answer 7

There are a few ways that a file path can be represented. You should use the System.IO.Path class to get the separators for the OS, since it can vary between UNIX and Windows. Also, most (or all if I'm not mistaken) .NET libraries accept either a '\' or a '/' as a path separator, regardless of OS. For this reason, I'd use the Path class to split your paths. Try something like the following:

string originalPath = "\\server\\folderName1\\another\ name\\something\\another folder\\";
string[] filesArray = originalPath.Split(Path.AltDirectorySeparatorChar,
                              Path.DirectorySeparatorChar);

This should work regardless of the number of folders or the names.

Answer 8

This is good in the general case:

yourPath.Split(@"\/", StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)

There is no empty element in the returned array if the path itself ends in a (back)slash (e.g. "\foo\bar\"). However, you will have to be sure that yourPath is really a directory and not a file. You can find out what it is and compensate if it is a file like this:

if(Directory.Exists(yourPath)) {
  var entries = yourPath.Split(@"\/", StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
}
else if(File.Exists(yourPath)) {
  var entries = Path.GetDirectoryName(yourPath).Split(
                    @"\/", StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
}
else {
  // error handling
}

I believe this covers all bases without being too pedantic. It will return a string[] that you can iterate over with foreach to get each directory in turn.

If you want to use constants instead of the @"\/" magic string, you need to use

var separators = new char[] {
  Path.DirectorySeparatorChar,  
  Path.AltDirectorySeparatorChar  
};

and then use separators instead of @"\/" in the code above. Personally, I find this too verbose and would most likely not do it.

Answer 9

I wrote the following method which works for me.

protected bool isDirectoryFound(string path, string pattern)
    {
        bool success = false;

        DirectoryInfo directories = new DirectoryInfo(@path);
        DirectoryInfo[] folderList = directories.GetDirectories();

        Regex rx = new Regex(pattern);

        foreach (DirectoryInfo di in folderList)
        {
            if (rx.IsMatch(di.Name))
            {
                success = true;
                break;
            }
        }

        return success;
    }

The lines most pertinent to your question being:

DirectoryInfo directories = new DirectoryInfo(@path); DirectoryInfo[] folderList = directories.GetDirectories();