What is the best way to recursively copy contents in C#?

Question

What is the best way to recursively copy a folder\'s content into another folder using C# and ASP.NET?

Answer 1

You can use SearchOption.AllDirectories to recursively search down folders, you just need to create the directories before you copy...

// string source, destination; - folder paths 
int pathLen = source.Length + 1;

foreach (string dirPath in Directory.GetDirectories(source, "*", SearchOption.AllDirectories))
{
    string subPath = dirPath.Substring(pathLen);
    string newpath = Path.Combine(destination, subPath);
    Directory.CreateDirectory(newpath );
}

foreach (string filePath in Directory.GetFiles(source, "*.*", SearchOption.AllDirectories))
{
    string subPath = filePath.Substring(pathLen);
    string newpath = Path.Combine(destination, subPath);
    File.Copy(filePath, newpath);
}

Answer 2

Just use Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO.FileSystem.CopyDirectory in Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll assembly.

Add a reference to Microsoft.VisualBasic

Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO.FileSystem.CopyDirectory(source, destination);

Answer 3

Well you can try this

DirectoryInfo sourcedinfo = new DirectoryInfo(@"E:\source");
DirectoryInfo destinfo = new DirectoryInfo(@"E:\destination");
copy.CopyAll(sourcedinfo, destinfo);

and this is the method that do all the work:

public void CopyAll(DirectoryInfo source, DirectoryInfo target)
{
    try
    {
        //check if the target directory exists
        if (Directory.Exists(target.FullName) == false)
        {
            Directory.CreateDirectory(target.FullName);
        }

        //copy all the files into the new directory

        foreach (FileInfo fi in source.GetFiles())
        {
            fi.CopyTo(Path.Combine(target.ToString(), fi.Name), true);
        }


        //copy all the sub directories using recursion

        foreach (DirectoryInfo diSourceDir in source.GetDirectories())
        {
            DirectoryInfo nextTargetDir = target.CreateSubdirectory(diSourceDir.Name);
            CopyAll(diSourceDir, nextTargetDir);
        }
        //success here
    }
    catch (IOException ie)
    {
        //handle it here
    }
}

I hope this will help :)