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C# List files in directory with wildcard on directory

I'm trying to list files on the directory using a wildcard in the directory name.
Something like:
var fileEntries = Directory.GetFiles("C:\\Users\\*\\Desktop\\statistics.txt");
When I'm trying to run this I get an exception about illegal characters.
I don't know what is the username on each PC in my network so it isn't possible to use regex (I think so).
So how can I search for files in a directory using the wildcard on the directory name?

Depending what you want to do with files inside wildcarded path, you can start with:
var dirs = Directory.GetDirectories("c:\\Users", "Desktop*", SearchOption.AllDirectories);
foreach (var d in dirs)
{
var files = Directory.GetFiles(d, "statistics.txt", SearchOption.AllDirectories);
}

One potential option is an overloaded method of Directory.GetFiles, here is documentation.
Using that method, your solution may looks something like:
Directory.GetFiles(
#"C:\Users",
"statistics.txt",
SearchOption.AllDirectories);
Note that SearchOption.AllDirectories will search all subdirectories of "C:\Users" folder. This may have a negative impact on performance, but if you are trying to return all files in a directory and subsequent subdirectories with a certain name, I think it is your best option.

Read all text files in a folder with StreamReader

I am trying to read all .txt files in a folder using stream reader. I have this now and it works fine for one file but I need to read all files in the folder. This is what I have so far. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
using (var reader = new StreamReader(File.OpenRead(#"C:\ftp\inbox\test.txt")))

You can use Directory.EnumerateFiles() method instead of.
Returns an enumerable collection of file names that match a search
pattern in a specified path.
var txtFiles = Directory.EnumerateFiles(sourceDirectory, "*.txt");
foreach (string currentFile in txtFiles)
{
...
}

You can call Directory.EnumerateFiles() to find all files in a folder.

You can retrieve the files of a directory:
string[] filePaths = Directory.GetFiles(#"c:\MyDir\");
Therefore you can iterate each file performing whatever you want. Ex: reading all lines.
And also you can use a file mask as a second argument for the GetFiles method.
Edit:
Inside this post you can see the difference between EnumerateFiles and GetFiles.
What is the difference between Directory.EnumerateFiles vs Directory.GetFiles?

Searching and copying Sub Directories in C Sharp

I am currently writing a program which searches My Documents. Currently my program is able to search and copy the main my documents folder but I am unable to make it search sub directory's within the main my documents directory. I have tried multiple methods but none seem to be working out.
Currently I am using the below code to dump the files location into an array called files. sourcePath is declared in an array before hand.
string[] files = System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(sourcePath[loopcounter]);
I then have a loop which copy's the files over to another directory
foreach (string s in files)
Any help as to how to fill the array files with details of files in the sub directories of a folder would be very handy. Thanks in advance!

Use research by pattern and specify you want use recursion :
var allFiles = Directory.GetFiles(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments),
"*",
SearchOption.AllDirectories);
foreach (var item in allFiles)
{
// Do Stuff...
}

If you want details about each file, then GetFiles returns you array of names. Pass each name to FileInfo API.

Get attributes of all files under a directory while accessing the directory only

I'm trying to write a function in C# that gets a directory path as parameter and returns a dictionary where the keys are the files directly under that directory and the values are their last modification time.
This is easy to do with Directory.GetFiles() and then File.GetLastWriteTime(). However, this means that every file must be accessed, which is too slow for my needs.
Is there a way to do this while accessing just the directory? Does the file system even support this kind of requirement?
Edit, after reading some answers:
Thank you guys, you are all saying pretty much the same - use FileInfo object. Still, it is just as slow to use Directory.GetFiles() (or Directory.EnumerateFiles()) to get those objects, and I suspect that getting them requires access to every file. If the file system keeps last modification time of its files in the files themselves only, there can't be a way to extract that info without file access. Is this the case here? Do GetFiles() and EnumerateFiles() of DirectoryInfo access every file or get their info from the directory entry? I know that if I would have wanted to get just the file names, I could do this with the Directory class without accessing every file. But getting attributes seems trickier...
Edit, following henk's response:
it seems that it really is faster to use FileInfo Object. I created the following test:
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now);
foreach (string file in Directory.GetFiles(#"\\169.254.78.161\dir"))
{
DateTime x = File.GetLastWriteTime(file);
}
Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now);
DirectoryInfo dirInfo2 = new DirectoryInfo(#"\\169.254.78.161\dir");
var files2 = from f in dirInfo2.EnumerateFiles()
select f;
foreach (FileInfo file in files2)
{
DateTime x = file.LastWriteTime;
}
Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now);
}
For about 800 files, I usually get something like:
31/08/2011 17:14:48
31/08/2011 17:14:51
31/08/2011 17:14:52

I didn't do any timings but your best bet is:
DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(myPath);
FileInfo[] files = di.GetFiles();
I think all the FileInfo attributes are available in the directory file records so this should (could) require the minimum I/O.

The only other thing I can think of is using the FileInfo-Class. As far as I can see this might help you or it might read the file as well (Read Permissions are required)

How do I search for files using C# on a windows OS

I have a csv file with file names and I need to search for those filenames in a particular directory. I can read thru a csv file and get all the filenames but would like to know how can I search for those files.
Any pointers would be would of great help

What about trying following code snippet.
Directory.EnumerateFiles(directory, fileName, SearchOption.AllDirectories);

System.IO.Directory.Getfiles will give you a list of files in a particular directory. If you need to so more intensive searching. You may want to use the windows indexing.

It's pretty easy, there are many different ways you can do this. I prefer the "exists" method if I am just trying to find out if the files are there.
string SearchDirectory = "C:\\SomeDirectory\\";
List<String> FilesToSearch = new List<string>();
//Populate FilesToSearch from your csv...
foreach (String CurrentFileToSearch in FilesToSearch)
{
if (System.IO.File.Exists(SearchDirectory + TargetFileName))
{
//Do Something!
}
}