Can you call Directory GetFiles with multiple filters

Question

I am trying to use the Directory GetFiles   method to retrieve a list of files of multiple types  such as mp3 s and jpg s   I have tried both of the following with no luck   Directory GetFiles  C   path      mp3   jpg   SearchOption AllDirectories   Directory GetFiles  C   path      mp3   jpg   SearchOption AllDirectories     Is there a way to do this in one call

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If you have a large list of extensions to check you can use the following  I didn t want to create a lot of OR statements so i modified what lette wrote   string supportedExtensions      jpg   gif   png   bmp   jpe   jpeg   wmf   emf   xbm   ico   eps   tif   tiff   g01   g02   g03   g04   g05   g06   g07   g08   foreach  string imageFile in Directory GetFiles  tempDirectory         SearchOption AllDirectories  Where s   gt  supportedExtensions Contains Path GetExtension s  ToLower              do work here

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Nope  Try the following   List lt string gt   searchPatternList   new List lt string gt                 List lt string gt  fileList   new List lt string gt         foreach   string ext in  searchPatternList                 foreach   string subFile in Directory GetFiles  folderName  ext                          fileList Add  subFile                            Sort alpabetically     fileList Sort            Add files to the file browser control         foreach   string fileName in fileList                              Taken from  http   blogs msdn com markda archive 2006 04 20 580075 aspx

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Another way to use Linq  but without having to return everything and filter on that in memory   var files   Directory GetFiles  C   path      mp3   SearchOption AllDirectories  Union Directory GetFiles  C   path      jpg   SearchOption AllDirectories      It s actually 2 calls to GetFiles    but I think it s consistent with the spirit of the question and returns them in one enumerable

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i don t know what solution is better  but i use this   String   ext      ext1   ext2  Split                    List lt String gt  files   new List lt String gt                 foreach  String tmp in ext                                files AddRange Directory GetFiles dir  tmp  SearchOption AllDirectories

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I had the same problem and couldn t find the right solution so I wrote a function called GetFiles        lt summary gt      Get all files with a specific extension      lt  summary gt       lt param name  extensionsToCompare  gt string list of all the extensions lt  param gt       lt param name  Location  gt string of the location lt  param gt       lt returns gt array of all the files with the specific extensions lt  returns gt  public string   GetFiles List lt string gt  extensionsToCompare  string Location        List lt string gt  files   new List lt string gt         foreach  string file in Directory GetFiles Location                 if  extensionsToCompare Contains file Substring file IndexOf      1  ToLower     files Add file             files Sort        return files ToArray        This function will call Directory Getfiles   only one time   For example call the function like this   string   images   GetFiles new List lt string gt   jpg    png    gif     imageFolder      EDIT  To get one file with multiple extensions use this one        lt summary gt          Get the file with a specific name and extension          lt  summary gt           lt param name  filename  gt the name of the file to find lt  param gt           lt param name  extensionsToCompare  gt string list of all the extensions lt  param gt           lt param name  Location  gt string of the location lt  param gt           lt returns gt file with the requested filename lt  returns gt      public string GetFile  string filename  List lt string gt  extensionsToCompare  string Location                foreach  string file in Directory GetFiles Location                         if  extensionsToCompare Contains file Substring file IndexOf        1  ToLower     amp  amp  amp  file Substring Location Length   1   file IndexOf      -  Location Length   1    ToLower      filename                   return file                    return             For example call the function like this   string image   GetFile  imagename   new List lt string gt   jpg    png    gif     imageFolder

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Let  var set   new HashSet lt string gt      mp3     jpg       Then  Directory GetFiles path         SearchOption AllDirectories            Where f   gt  set Contains               new FileInfo f  Extension               StringComparer OrdinalIgnoreCase      or  from file in Directory GetFiles path         SearchOption AllDirectories  from ext in set where String Equals ext  new FileInfo file  Extension  StringComparison OrdinalIgnoreCase  select file

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I know it s old question but LINQ     NET40    var files   Directory GetFiles  path to files   Where file   gt  Regex IsMatch file          wav mp3 txt

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Make the extensions you want one string i e   mp3 jpg wma wmf  and then check if each file contains the extension you want  This works with  net 2 0 as it does not use LINQ   string myExtensions   jpg mp3    string   files System IO Directory GetFiles  C  myfolder     foreach string file in files       if myExtensions ToLower   contains System IO Path GetExtension s  ToLower                  this file has passed  do something with this file           The advantage with this approach is you can add or remove extensions without editing the code i e to add png images  just write myExtensions   jpg mp3 png

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I wonder why there are so many  solutions  posted   If my rookie-understanding on how GetFiles works is right  there are only two options and any of the solutions above can be brought down to these    GetFiles  then filter  Fast  but a memory killer due to storing overhead untill the filters are applied Filter while GetFiles  Slower the more filters are set  but low memory usage as no overhead is stored This is explained in one of the above posts with an impressive benchmark  Each filter option causes a seperate GetFile-operation so the same part of the harddrive gets read several times    In my opinion Option 1  is better  but using the SearchOption AllDirectories on folders like C   would use huge amounts of memory  Therefor i would just make a recursive sub-method that goes through all subfolders using option 1   This should cause only 1 GetFiles-operation on each folder and therefor be fast  Option 1   but use only a small amount of memory as the filters are applied afters each subfolders  reading -  overhead is deleted after each subfolder   Please correct me if I am wrong  I am as i said quite new to programming but want to gain deeper understanding of things to eventually become good at this

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How about this   private static string   GetFiles string sourceFolder  string filters  System IO SearchOption searchOption       return filters Split      SelectMany filter   gt  System IO Directory GetFiles sourceFolder  filter  searchOption   ToArray        I found it here  in the comments   http   msdn microsoft com en-us library wz42302f aspx

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Or you can just convert the string of extensions to String   vector  lt string gt   extensions        mp4      avi      flv     for  int i   0  i  lt  extensions size      i         String  ext   gcnew String extensions i  c str           String  path    C   Users  Eric  Videos        array lt String  gt  files   Directory  GetFiles path ext        Console  WriteLine ext        cout  lt  lt       lt  lt   files- gt Length   lt  lt  endl

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If you are using VB NET  or imported the dependency into your C  project   there actually exists a convenience method that allows to filter for multiple extensions   Microsoft VisualBasic FileIO FileSystem GetFiles  C   path   Microsoft VisualBasic FileIO SearchOption SearchAllSubDirectories  new string       mp3      jpg       In VB NET this can be accessed through the My-namespace   My Computer FileSystem GetFiles  C  path   FileIO SearchOption SearchAllSubDirectories      mp3      jpg      Unfortunately  these convenience methods don t support a lazily evaluated variant like Directory EnumerateFiles   does

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for  var exts   new      mp3    jpg       You could   public IEnumerable lt string gt  FilterFiles string path  params string   exts        return         Directory          EnumerateFiles path                  Where file   gt  exts Any x   gt  file EndsWith x  StringComparison OrdinalIgnoreCase          Don t forget the new  NET4 Directory EnumerateFiles for a performance boost  What is the difference between Directory EnumerateFiles vs Directory GetFiles    IgnoreCase  should be faster than  ToLower    EndsWith  aspx   StringComparison OrdinalIgnoreCase  rather than  ToLower   EndsWith  aspx      But the real benefit of EnumerateFiles shows up when you split up the filters and merge the results   public IEnumerable lt string gt  FilterFiles string path  params string   exts        return          exts Select x   gt         x     turn into globs          SelectMany x   gt               Directory EnumerateFiles path  x                     It gets a bit faster if you don t have to turn them into globs  i e  exts   new       mp3      jpg   already    Performance evaluation based on the following LinqPad test  note  Perf just repeats the delegate 10000 times  https   gist github com zaus 7454021    reposted and extended from  duplicate  since that question specifically requested no LINQ  Multiple file-extensions searchPattern for System IO Directory GetFiles

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I can t use  Where method because I m programming in  NET Framework 2 0  Linq is only supported in  NET Framework 3 5      Code below is not case sensitive  so  CaB or  cab will be listed too    string   ext   new string 2       CAB      MSU      foreach  string found in ext        string   extracted   Directory GetFiles  C   test   found  System IO SearchOption AllDirectories        foreach  string file in extracted                Console WriteLine file

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in  NET 2 0  no Linq    public static List lt string gt  GetFilez string path  System IO SearchOption opt   params string   patterns        List lt string gt  filez   new List lt string gt         foreach  string pattern in patterns                filez AddRange              System IO Directory GetFiles path  pattern  opt                            filez Sort       Optional     return filez     Optional   ToArray       Then use it   foreach  string fn in GetFilez path                                System IO SearchOption AllDirectories                                   xml      xml rels      rels

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For  NET 4 0 and later    var files   Directory EnumerateFiles  C   path          SearchOption AllDirectories               Where s   gt  s EndsWith   mp3      s EndsWith   jpg       For earlier versions of  NET   var files   Directory GetFiles  C   path          SearchOption AllDirectories               Where s   gt  s EndsWith   mp3      s EndsWith   jpg       edit  Please read the comments  The improvement that Paul Farry suggests  and the memory performance issue that Christian K points out are both very important

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List lt string gt  FileList   new List lt string gt     DirectoryInfo di   new DirectoryInfo  C   DirName     IEnumerable lt FileInfo gt  fileList   di GetFiles            Create the query IEnumerable lt FileInfo gt  fileQuery   from file in fileList                                   where  file Extension ToLower        jpg     file Extension ToLower        png                                     orderby file LastWriteTime                                   select file   foreach  System IO FileInfo fi in fileQuery        fi Attributes   FileAttributes Normal      FileList Add fi FullName

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Nop    I believe you have to make as many calls as the file types you want    I would create a function myself taking an array on strings with the extensions I need and then iterate on that array making all the necessary calls  That function would return a generic list of the files matching the extensions I d sent   Hope it helps

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Using GetFiles search pattern for filtering the extension is not safe   For instance you have two file Test1 xls and Test2 xlsx and you want to filter out xls file using search pattern   xls  but GetFiles return both Test1 xls and Test2 xlsx  I was not aware of this and got error in production environment when some temporary files suddenly was handled as right files  Search pattern was   txt and temp files was named   txt20181028 100753898 So search pattern can not be trusted  you have to add extra check on filenames as well

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The following function searches on multiple patterns  separated by commas   You can also specify an exclusion  eg    web config  will search for all files and exclude  web config    Patterns can be mixed   private string   FindFiles string directory  string filters  SearchOption searchOption        if   Directory Exists directory   return new string             var include    from filter in filters Split new char            StringSplitOptions RemoveEmptyEntries  where  string IsNullOrEmpty filter Trim    select filter Trim         var exclude    from filter in include where filter Contains       select filter        include   include Except exclude        if  include Count      0  include   new string                 var rxfilters   from filter in exclude select string Format    0     filter Replace          Replace             Replace            Replace                 Regex regex   new Regex string Join      rxfilters ToArray           List lt Thread gt  workers   new List lt Thread gt         List lt string gt  files   new List lt string gt          foreach  string filter in include                Thread worker   new Thread              new ThreadStart                  delegate                                       string   allfiles   Directory GetFiles directory  filter  searchOption                       if  exclude Count    gt  0                                                lock  files                              files AddRange allfiles Where p   gt   regex Match p  Success                                              else                                               lock  files                              files AddRange allfiles                                                                    workers Add worker            worker Start               foreach  Thread worker in workers                worker Join               return files ToArray         Usage   foreach  string file in FindFiles   D  628 2 11        config     js   SearchOption AllDirectories                                 Console WriteLine file

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DirectoryInfo directory   new DirectoryInfo Server MapPath    Contents         Using Union  FileInfo   files   directory GetFiles    xlsx                                Union directory                              GetFiles    csv                                 ToArray

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Here is a simple and elegant way of getting filtered files  var allowedFileExtensions     csv  txt     var files   Directory EnumerateFiles   C  MyFolder          SearchOption TopDirectoryOnly                   Where s   gt  allowedFileExtensions IndexOf Path GetExtension s    gt  -1  ToArray

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lt summary gt      Returns the names of files in a specified directories that match the specified patterns using LINQ      lt  summary gt       lt param name  srcDirs  gt The directories to seach lt  param gt       lt param name  searchPatterns  gt the list of search patterns lt  param gt       lt param name  searchOption  gt  lt  param gt       lt returns gt The list of files that match the specified pattern lt  returns gt  public static string   GetFilesUsingLINQ string   srcDirs       string   searchPatterns       SearchOption searchOption   SearchOption AllDirectories        var r   from dir in srcDirs             from searchPattern in searchPatterns             from f in Directory GetFiles dir  searchPattern  searchOption              select f       return r ToArray

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What about  string   filesPNG   Directory GetFiles path     png    string   filesJPG   Directory GetFiles path     jpg    string   filesJPEG   Directory GetFiles path     jpeg     int totalArraySizeAll   filesPNG Length   filesJPG Length   filesJPEG Length  List lt string gt  filesAll   new List lt string gt  totalArraySizeAll   filesAll AddRange filesPNG   filesAll AddRange filesJPG   filesAll AddRange filesJPEG

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There is also a descent solution which seems not to have any memory or performance overhead and be quite elegant   string   filters   new      jpg      png      gif    string   filePaths   filters SelectMany f   gt  Directory GetFiles basePath  f   ToArray

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Just found an another way to do it   Still not one operation  but throwing it out to see what other people think about it   private void getFiles string path        foreach  string s in Array FindAll Directory GetFiles path       SearchOption AllDirectories   predicate FileMatch                 Debug Print s            private bool predicate FileMatch string fileName        if  fileName EndsWith   mp3            return true      if  fileName EndsWith   jpg            return true      return false

[c#] Can you call Directory.GetFiles() with multiple filters?

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