Delete everything in a directory except a file in C#

Question

I am having trouble deleting everything in a directory except a file (index.dat) I am trying to clear the cookies folder and the temp folder of files but I get an error when I try to delete index.dat because its being used by another process. Is there a way to delete everything in the temp and cookies folder except the index.dat file? Here is my code:

string userProfile = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("USERPROFILE");
string strDirLocalq = Path.Combine(userProfile, "AppData");
string strDirLocalw = Path.Combine(strDirLocalq, "Roaming");
string strDirLocale = Path.Combine(strDirLocalw, "Microsoft");
string strDirLocalr = Path.Combine(strDirLocale, "Windows");
string strDirLocalt = Path.Combine(strDirLocalr, "Cookies");

string[] filePaths = Directory.GetFiles(strDirLocalt);
foreach (string filePath in filePaths)
    File.Delete(filePath);

Solution 1

This works:

string[] filePaths = Directory.GetFiles(strDirLocalt);
foreach (string filePath in filePaths)
{
    var name = new FileInfo(filePath).Name;
    name = name.ToLower();
    if (name != "index.dat")
    {
        File.Delete(filePath);
    }
}

Solution 2

Check out this interesting solution!

List<string> files = new List<string>(System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(strDirLocalt));
files.ForEach(x => { try { System.IO.File.Delete(x); } catch { } });

Feel the beauty of the language!

Solution 3

Simply place a try/catch around the File.Delete because there could be more files that are in use which will also throw exceptions.

try
{
  File.Delete(filePath);
}
catch (Exception ignore)
{
}

Solution 4

string[] filePaths = Directory.GetFiles(strDirLocalt); 
foreach (string filePath in filePaths)
 try {
   File.Delete(filePath);
 }
 catch{ }
}

View more solutions

Comments

[Jon]

If you were to apply this more generically, it would be a pain to modify the list of files which are to be skipped. If you were to use the where-not style, it may save you time in the future to put all skipped files into a static array, then use filePaths.Where(fp=>!skipped.Any(s=>fp.Contains(s)))...

[Adi]

This is good. Anyway, you still need to loop through files, so I would combine the 2 solution: tster's and Hams's

[Pol]

You're welcome :-) I modified it slightly to use FileInfo class.

[llk]

This worked too. Thanks! It grabs any file that is currently "in use" too and blocks it from being deleted.

[Nickon]

Lambdas make this lang pleasure to use:)

[Pierre]

instead of Directory.GetFiles(strDirLocalt) use new DirectoryInfo(strDirLocalt).GetFiles() which returns List<FileInfo> then you can just do fi.Delete();

[Alex from Jitbit]

Good answer but leaves empty directories