Find number of files with a specific extension, in all subdirectories

Question

Is there a way to find the number of files of a specific type without having to loop through all results inn a Directory.GetFiles() or similar method? I am looking for somet

Answer 1

I have an app which generates counts of the directories and files in a parent directory. Some of the directories contain thousands of sub directories with thousands of files in each. To do this whilst maintaining a responsive ui I do the following ( sending the path to ADirectoryPathWasSelected method):

public class DirectoryFileCounter
{
    int mDirectoriesToRead = 0;

    // Pass this method the parent directory path
    public void ADirectoryPathWasSelected(string path)
    {
        // create a task to do this in the background for responsive ui
        // state is the path
        Task.Factory.StartNew((state) =>
        {
            try
            {
                // Get the first layer of sub directories
                this.AddCountFilesAndFolders(state.ToString())


             }
             catch // Add Handlers for exceptions
             {}
        }, path));
    }

    // This method is called recursively
    private void AddCountFilesAndFolders(string path)
    {
        try
        {
            // Only doing the top directory to prevent an exception from stopping the entire recursion
            var directories = Directory.EnumerateDirectories(path, "*.*", SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly);

            // calling class is tracking the count of directories
            this.mDirectoriesToRead += directories.Count();

            // get the child directories
            // this uses an extension method to the IEnumerable<V> interface,
           // which will run a function on an object. In this case 'd' is the 
           // collection of directories
            directories.ActionOnEnumerable(d => AddCountFilesAndFolders(d));
        }
        catch // Add Handlers for exceptions
        {
        }
        try
        {
            // count the files in the directory
            this.mFilesToRead += Directory.EnumerateFiles(path).Count();
        }
        catch// Add Handlers for exceptions
        { }
    }
}
// Extension class
public static class Extensions
{ 
    // this runs the supplied method on each object in the supplied enumerable
    public static void ActionOnEnumerable<V>(this IEnumerable<V> nodes,Action<V> doit)
    {

        foreach (var node in nodes)
        {   
            doit(node);
        }
    }
}