Multiple file-extensions searchPattern for System.IO.Directory.GetFiles

Question

What is the syntax for setting multiple file-extensions as searchPattern on Directory.GetFiles()? For example filtering out files

Answer 1

GetFiles can only match a single pattern, but you can use Linq to invoke GetFiles with multiple patterns:

FileInfo[] fi = new string[]{"*.txt","*.doc"}
    .SelectMany(i => di.GetFiles(i, SearchOption.AllDirectories))
    .ToArray();

See comments section here: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/NET_DirectoryInfo.aspx

Answer 2

I would use the following:

var ext = new string[] { ".ASPX", ".ASCX" };
FileInfo[] collection = (from fi in new DirectoryInfo(path).GetFiles()
                         where ext.Contains(fi.Extension.ToUpper())
                         select fi)
                         .ToArray();

EDIT: corrected due mismatch between Directory and DirectoryInfo

Answer 3

look like this demo:

void Main()
{
    foreach(var f in GetFilesToProcess("c:\\", new[] {".xml", ".txt"}))
        Debug.WriteLine(f);
}
private static IEnumerable<string> GetFilesToProcess(string path, IEnumerable<string> extensions)
{
   return Directory.GetFiles(path, "*.*")
       .Where(f => extensions.Contains(Path.GetExtension(f).ToLower()));
}

Answer 4

I did a simple way for seach as many extensions as you need, and with no ToLower(), RegEx, foreach...

List<String> myExtensions = new List<String>() { ".aspx", ".ascx", ".cs" }; // You can add as many extensions as you want.
DirectoryInfo myFolder = new DirectoryInfo(@"C:\FolderFoo");
SearchOption option = SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly; // Use SearchOption.AllDirectories for seach in all subfolders.
List<FileInfo> myFiles = myFolder.EnumerateFiles("*.*", option)
    .Where(file => myExtensions
    .Any(e => String.Compare(file.Extension, e, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture, CompareOptions.IgnoreCase) == 0))
    .ToList();

Working on .Net Standard 2.0.

Answer 5

You can do it like this

new DirectoryInfo(path).GetFiles().Where(Current => Regex.IsMatch(Current.Extension, "\\.(aspx|ascx)", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase)

Answer 6

I believe there is no "out of the box" solution, that's a limitation of the Directory.GetFiles method.

It's fairly easy to write your own method though, here is an example.

The code could be:

/// <summary>
/// Returns file names from given folder that comply to given filters
/// </summary>
/// <param name="SourceFolder">Folder with files to retrieve</param>
/// <param name="Filter">Multiple file filters separated by | character</param>
/// <param name="searchOption">File.IO.SearchOption, 
/// could be AllDirectories or TopDirectoryOnly</param>
/// <returns>Array of FileInfo objects that presents collection of file names that 
/// meet given filter</returns>
public string[] getFiles(string SourceFolder, string Filter, 
 System.IO.SearchOption searchOption)
{
 // ArrayList will hold all file names
ArrayList alFiles = new ArrayList();

 // Create an array of filter string
 string[] MultipleFilters = Filter.Split('|');

 // for each filter find mathing file names
 foreach (string FileFilter in MultipleFilters)
 {
  // add found file names to array list
  alFiles.AddRange(Directory.GetFiles(SourceFolder, FileFilter, searchOption));
 }

 // returns string array of relevant file names
 return (string[])alFiles.ToArray(typeof(string));
}