Write string to text file and ensure it always overwrites the existing content.

Question

I have a string with a C# program that I want to write to a file and always overwrite the existing content. If the file isn't there, the program should create a new file instead of throwing an exception.

Solution 1

System.IO.File.WriteAllText (@"D:\path.txt", contents);

• If the file exists, this overwrites it.
• If the file does not exist, this creates it.
• Please make sure you have appropriate privileges to write at the location, otherwise you will get an exception.

Solution 2

Use the File.WriteAllText method. It creates the file if it doesn't exist and overwrites it if it exists.

Solution 3

Generally, FileMode.Create is what you're looking for.

Solution 4

Use the file mode enum to change the File.Open behavior. This works for binary content as well as text.

Since FileMode.Open and FileMode.OpenOrCreate load the existing content to the file stream, if you want to replace the file completely you need to first clear the existing content, if any, before writing to the stream. FileMode.Truncate performs this step automatically

// OriginalFile:
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

// NewFile:
----------------

// Write to file stream with FileMode.Open:
----------------oooooooooooooo

var exists = File.Exists(path);
var fileMode = exists
    ? FileMode.Truncate   // overwrites all of the content of an existing file
    : FileMode.CreateNew  // creates a new file

using (var destinationStream = File.Open(path, fileMode)
{
    await newContentStream.CopyToAsync(destinationStream);
}

FileMode Enum

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Comments

[Zach Smith]

ah. so simple and helpful.

[sino]

He is asking for an existing file to override