When writing file paths in C#, I found that I can either write something like "C:\" or "C:/" and get the same path. Which one is recommended? I heard somewhere that using a single / was more recommended than using \ (with \ as an escaped sequence).
+2
A:
I write paths in C# like this:
@"C:\My\Path"
The @ character turns off \ escaping.
Eric J.
2010-01-01 05:29:34
+1
A:
This isn't a C# issue - it's a Windows issue. Paths in Windows are normally shown with a backslash: C:. In my opinion, that's what you should use in C#. Use @"C:\" to prevent special handling of backslaash characters.
John Saunders
2010-01-01 05:30:13
+5
A:
Use Path.Combine and you don't need to worry about such semantics.
Peter Alexander
2010-01-01 05:32:44
It's too bad that Path.Combine takes only 2 parameters.
Mike C.
2010-01-01 13:41:45
+10
A:
Windows supports both path separators, so both will work, at least for local paths (/ won't work for network paths). The thing is that there is no actual benefit of using the working but non standard path separator (/) on Windows, especially because you can use the verbatim string literal:
string path = @"C:\" //Look ma, no escape
The only case where I could see a benefit of using the / separator is when you'll work with relative paths only and will use the code in Windows and Linux. Then you can have "../foo/bar/baz" point to the same directory. But even in this case is better to leave the System.IO namespace (Path.DirectorySeparatorChar, Path.Combine) to take care of such issues.
Vinko Vrsalovic
2010-01-01 05:33:07
What you're calling "raw string operator" is really "verbatim string literal".
Jay Bazuzi
2010-01-01 05:44:07
@Jay: "Verbatim string literal operator"? or just "Verbatim string literal"?
Vinko Vrsalovic
2010-01-01 13:11:47
Even if you're writing code to use on posix and Windows, you should still use the right one. There are many (third-party) abstractions to make this easy, one such being path_util in Chromium.
jeffamaphone
2010-01-01 19:40:24
@jeffamaphone: I agree. That's what I say in the final phrase, but in this case there's no need for third party abstractions.
Vinko Vrsalovic
2010-01-01 20:01:26
+11
A:
Please use Path.DirectorySeparatorChar OR better, as Poita suggested use Path.Combine.
SolutionYogi
2010-01-01 05:39:34
`Path.PathSeparator` is a character to split paths in the PATH environment variable. On Windows it is `;`. I updated this answer to refer to `DirectorySeparatorChar`.
280Z28
2010-01-01 06:32:18
Oops. Thank you for the correction, I did mean to post about DirectorySeparatorChar.
SolutionYogi
2010-01-01 07:52:01