What is the best way to empty a directory?

Question

Is there a way to delete all files & sub-directories of a specified directory without iterating over them?

The non elegant solution:

public static void EmptyDirectory(string path)
{
    if (Directory.Exists(path))
    {
        // Delete all files
        foreach (var file in Directory.GetFiles(path))
        {
            File.Delete(file);
        }

        // Delete all folders
        foreach (var directory in Directory.GetDirectories(path))
        {
            Directory.Delete(directory, true);
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

Why is that not elegant? It's clean, very readable and does the job.

Answer 2

How about System.IO.Directory.Delete? It has a recursion option, you're even using it. Reviewing your code it looks like you're trying to do something slightly different -- empty the directory without deleting it, right? Well, you could delete it and re-create it :)

After re-interpreting your question, this is the best I've got:

foreach(System.IO.FileSystemInfo fsi in 
    new System.IO.DirectoryInfo(path).GetFileSystemInfos())
{
    if (fsi is System.IO.DirectoryInfo)
        ((System.IO.DirectoryInfo)fsi).Delete(true);
    else
        fsi.Delete();
}

Answer 3

One possible way is to call system command interpreter.

Answer 4

Well, you could always just use Directory.Delete....

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa328748%28VS.71%29.aspx

Or if you want to get fancy, use WMI to delete the directory.

Answer 5

This looks like a good solution to me. I'm not sure how much "more elegant" it can get. What issues exactly do you have with this solution?

Answer 6

Delete the directory with the recursive call mentioned, and create a new directory with the same name. :)