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A Small C# File Cloner Class

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4.74/5 (9 votes)
6 Sep 2010CPOL1 min read 42K   752   19   11
Introducing a small class that helps you in creating automatic copies of files and clean them up automatically, too

Introduction

This article shows you a small class that you can use in various projects to simplify the following process:

  1. Create a temporary copy of a file.
  2. Perform operations on/with the temporary file.
  3. Delete the temporary copy of the file.

Background

I created the class for a web application project where I read some Microsoft Excel documents into memory, manipulated the Excel documents in memory and finally sent them to the user's web browser.

Usually this task is as easy as doing some File operations and get a Stream object to the file. This works great when the file is not opened in Microsoft Excel. When it is opened, it is exclusively locked by Excel, resulting in exceptions in my code when I try to access the file stream.

What still works is to copy the file.

So I created a class that implements the IDisposable interface, creates a temporary copy of the file in its constructor, and deletes the temporary file again in its destructor or via the IDisposable.Dispose method.

Using the Code

Using the code is really simple. Instead of writing something like:

C#
// ...Do some operations to the file...
myFunctionThatOperatesOnTheFile( @"C:\Some\Path\File.xlsx" );

You write a code like:

C#
using ( var tfc = new ZetaTemporaryFileCloner( @"C:\Some\Path\File.xlsx" ) )
{
    // ...Do some operations to the file...
    myFunctionThatOperatesOnTheFile( tfc.FilePath );
}

Easy, isn't it?

Points of Interest

In this article, I've shown you a really small class which allows for automatic creation and removal of a temporary file. The download contains the complete C# class which you can simply drop into your own projects.

For your questions, comments and feedback (which I love to get!), please use the comments section below at the bottom of this article. Thank you!

History

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
Chief Technology Officer Zeta Software GmbH
Germany Germany
Uwe does programming since 1989 with experiences in Assembler, C++, MFC and lots of web- and database stuff and now uses ASP.NET and C# extensively, too. He has also teached programming to students at the local university.

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In his free time, he does climbing, running and mountain biking. In 2012 he became a father of a cute boy and in 2014 of an awesome girl.

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Comments and Discussions

 
Questionbetter.. Pin
mk.developer17-Jun-12 1:21
mk.developer17-Jun-12 1:21 
GeneralI like this one too, and also gave it a 5 Pin
Sacha Barber6-Sep-10 23:37
Sacha Barber6-Sep-10 23:37 
GeneralRe: I like this one too, and also gave it a 5 Pin
Uwe Keim7-Sep-10 7:04
sitebuilderUwe Keim7-Sep-10 7:04 
GeneralMy vote of 4 Pin
Eric Xue (brokensnow)6-Sep-10 10:06
Eric Xue (brokensnow)6-Sep-10 10:06 
GeneralRe: My vote of 4 Pin
Uwe Keim6-Sep-10 19:06
sitebuilderUwe Keim6-Sep-10 19:06 
GeneralNice approach Pin
Sushant Joshi6-Sep-10 6:47
Sushant Joshi6-Sep-10 6:47 
GeneralRe: Nice approach Pin
Uwe Keim6-Sep-10 6:48
sitebuilderUwe Keim6-Sep-10 6:48 
GeneralGood article Pin
Jeff.Ou19-Jul-10 23:46
Jeff.Ou19-Jul-10 23:46 
GeneralRe: Good article Pin
Uwe Keim19-Jul-10 23:53
sitebuilderUwe Keim19-Jul-10 23:53 
GeneralVote of 4 Pin
Charles Cox5-Jul-10 17:29
Charles Cox5-Jul-10 17:29 
GeneralRe: Vote of 4 Pin
Uwe Keim5-Jul-10 18:30
sitebuilderUwe Keim5-Jul-10 18:30 

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