Check whether a path is valid

Question

I am just wondering  I am looking for a way to validate if a given path is valid   Note  I do not want to check if a file is existing  I only want to proof the validity of the path - So if a file could possibly exists at the location    Problem is  I can t find anything in the  Net API  Due to the many formats and locations that Windows supports  I d rather use something MS-native   Since the function should be able to check against         Relative Paths        Absolute Paths  c  tmp    UNC-Pathes   some-pc c     NTFS-Limitations like the full path 1024 chars - If I am not mistaken exceeding the path will make a file inaccessible for many   internal Windows functions  Renaming it with Explorer still works   Volume GUID Paths       Volume GUID  somefile foo      Does anyone have a function like this

User · Answer

I haven t had any problems with the code below   Relative paths must start with     or        private bool IsValidPath string path  bool allowRelativePaths   false        bool isValid   true       try               string fullPath   Path GetFullPath path            if  allowRelativePaths                        isValid   Path IsPathRooted path                     else                       string root   Path GetPathRoot path               isValid   string IsNullOrEmpty root Trim new char                      false                      catch Exception ex                isValid   false             return isValid      For example these would return false   IsValidPath  C  abc d    IsValidPath  C  abc d    IsValidPath  C  abc  d    IsValidPath  C  abc lt d    IsValidPath  C  abc gt d    IsValidPath  C  abc d    IsValidPath  C  abc d    IsValidPath      IsValidPath    abc    IsValidPath    abc   true   IsValidPath   abc    IsValidPath  abc    IsValidPath  abc   true     And these would return true   IsValidPath   C   abc    IsValidPath   F  FILES     IsValidPath   C   abc docx  defg docx    IsValidPath   C  abc defg    IsValidPath   C               abc                 defg    IsValidPath   C  abc def         amp    -          g    IsValidPath   C      abc        defg    IsValidPath    abc   true   IsValidPath    abc   true

User · Answer

Just Simply Use  if  System IO Directory Exists path

User · Answer

private bool IsValidPath string path        Regex driveCheck   new Regex     a-zA-Z             if   driveCheck IsMatch path Substring 0  3    return false      string strTheseAreInvalidFileNameChars   new string Path GetInvalidPathChars         strTheseAreInvalidFileNameChars                        Regex containsABadCharacter   new Regex       Regex Escape strTheseAreInvalidFileNameChars              if  containsABadCharacter IsMatch path Substring 3  path Length - 3            return false       DirectoryInfo dir   new DirectoryInfo Path GetFullPath path        if   dir Exists          dir Create        return true

User · Answer

The closest I have come is by trying to create it  and seeing if it succeeds

User · Answer

Directory Exists

User · Answer

Try Uri IsWellFormedUriString     The string is not correctly escaped    http   www example com path    file name   The string is an absolute Uri that represents an implicit file Uri    c   directory filename   The string is an absolute URI that is missing a slash before the path    file   c  directory filename   The string contains unescaped backslashes even if they are treated as forward slashes    http   host path file   The string represents a hierarchical absolute Uri and does not contain  quot     quot     www example com path file   The parser for the Uri Scheme indicates that the original string was not well-formed    The example depends on the scheme of the URI

User · Answer

private bool IsValidPath string path        Regex driveCheck   new Regex     a-zA-Z              if  string IsNullOrWhiteSpace path     path Length  lt  3                return false             if   driveCheck IsMatch path Substring 0  3                  return false             var x1    path Substring 3  path Length - 3        string strTheseAreInvalidFileNameChars   new string Path GetInvalidPathChars         strTheseAreInvalidFileNameChars                Regex containsABadCharacter   new Regex       Regex Escape strTheseAreInvalidFileNameChars               if  containsABadCharacter IsMatch path Substring 3  path Length - 3                  return false             var driveLetterWithColonAndSlash   Path GetPathRoot path        if   DriveInfo GetDrives   Any x   gt  x Name    driveLetterWithColonAndSlash                 return false             return true

User · Answer

You can try this code   try     Path GetDirectoryName myPath     catch        Path is not valid     I m not sure it covers all the cases

User · Answer

You could try using Path IsPathRooted   in combination with Path GetInvalidFileNameChars   to make sure the path is half-way okay

User · Answer

Get the invalid chars from System IO Path GetInvalidPathChars    and check if your string  Directory path  contains those or not

User · Answer

There are plenty of good solutions in here  but as none of then check if the path is rooted in an existing drive here s another one   private bool IsValidPath string path           Check if the path is rooted in a driver     if  path Length  lt  3  return false      Regex driveCheck   new Regex     a-zA-Z             if   driveCheck IsMatch path Substring 0  3    return false          Check if such driver exists     IEnumerable lt string gt  allMachineDrivers   DriveInfo GetDrives   Select drive   gt  drive Name       if   allMachineDrivers Contains path Substring 0  3    return false          Check if the rest of the path is valid     string InvalidFileNameChars   new string Path GetInvalidPathChars         InvalidFileNameChars                        Regex containsABadCharacter   new Regex       Regex Escape InvalidFileNameChars              if  containsABadCharacter IsMatch path Substring 3  path Length - 3            return false      if  path path Length - 1          return false       return true      This solution does not take relative paths into account

User · Answer

Or use the FileInfo as suggested in In C  check that filename is possibly valid  not that it exists

[c#] Check whether a path is valid

Examples related to c#

Examples related to .net

Examples related to winapi

Examples related to path