Directory.GetFiles Hangs on drive selection

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Hello

Please see my code below to select all files under the selected folder

List<string> search;
search = Directory.GetFiles(@folderBrowserDialog1.SelectedPath, "*.*", SearchOption.AllDirectories).ToList();

This works well with small folders.

Whenever I choose a drive D: or E: it just keeps working. Is there any better way to faster handle this ?

Thanks !

Posted 28-Oct-14 20:03pm

tvks

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BillWoodruff 29-Oct-14 2:29am

What is the reason to (recursively) get ALL the Files in a drive, including all files in all directories in that drive ?

tvks 1-Nov-14 22:01pm

Forcibly my requirement is to get all files in a selected path. When the user chooses a drive, my app goes for a toss (hanging) !!

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Garth J Lancaster · Answer 1 · 2014-10-28T20:16:00

Solution 1

I don't know if any of the file enumeration techniques shown here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd997370(v=vs.110).aspx[^] are faster - obviously they are worth a shot - also, again obvious, I'd try to keep the search path as narrow/refined as possible to try and avoid the 'AllDirectories'

Posted 28-Oct-14 20:16pm

Garth J Lancaster

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tvks 1-Nov-14 22:02pm

Hi Garth ! From my test I hardly find any difference when my C drive is choosen. It does hang.

BillWoodruff · Answer 2 · 2014-10-28T20:42:00

I suggest you really think deeply about whether or not you actually need to recursively get the filepaths of all files, in all directories, in a drive ! I'd guess you don't need to do that, and that you will want to filter the results by some criteria, like file-extension, etc.

First, as Garth points out to you in his reply, you definitely should use .NET 4.0 and later's 'EnumerateFiles method rather than 'GetFiles [^]:

"The EnumerateFiles and GetFiles methods differ as follows: When you use EnumerateFiles, you can start enumerating the collection of names before the whole collection is returned; when you use GetFiles, you must wait for the whole array of names to be returned before you can access the array. Therefore, when you are working with many files and directories, EnumerateFiles can be more efficient."

You can find excellent examples, and techniques, for creating efficient file searches using various options, and Linq, with EnumerateFiles here: [^].