Move directory on system when executed C#? [closed] - c#

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I'm looking to move my C# application .EXE when ran to lets say... Documents and then delete from the place which it was executed.
For example, If I ran my .EXE on my desktop before running the program copy itself to the directory "documents" and then delete the one from executed directory (which in my case is desktop) after running the new one in documents.
Process: Run > Move to C://Documents > Start .EXE in documents > Delete the .EXE from the executed directory.
Sorry if this may come across hard to understand for some people I tried my best to specifically state what I wanted to accomplish.

I hope you can write the program in this way which will help.
1) program
i) Check if the program's execution directory is not C:/Documents
then it should copy the folder and put it in C:/Documents
and start the exe inside the documents
ii) else get a running list of the exe and their execution directory
(if its not C:/Documents stop the exe, and delete the execution folder
not sure if this will help , but just this is my thought

There's no way to do this with a single process as the exe which you want to move is going to be running in memory.
You could make the application copy itself, execute the copy, then kill itself.
this will definitely need to be tweaked and is very basic, but hopefully will give you some idea. sorry that it's all statics in a console application, all the methods should be in their own appropriate class.
using System;
using System.Globalization;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
namespace StackExchangeSelfMovingExe
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
// check if we are running in the correct path or not?
bool DoMoveExe = !IsRunningInDocuments();
string runningPath = Directory.GetCurrentDirectory();
if (DoMoveExe)
{
// if we get here then we are not, copy our app to the right place.
string newAppPath = GetDesiredExePath();
CopyFolder(runningPath, newAppPath);
CreateToDeleteMessage(newAppPath, runningPath); // leave a message so new process can delete the old app path
// start the application running in the right directory.
string newExePath = $"{GetDesiredExePath()}\\{System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName}";
ExecuteExe(newExePath);
// kill our own process since a new one is now running in the right place.
KillMyself();
}
else
{
// if we get here then we are running in the right place. check if we need to delete the old exe before we ended up here.
string toDeleteMessagePath = $"{runningPath}\\CopiedFromMessage.txt";
if (File.Exists(toDeleteMessagePath))
{
// if the file exists then we have been left a message to tell us to delete a path.
string pathToDelete = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(toDeleteMessagePath);
// kill any processes still running from the old folder.
KillAnyProcessesRunningFromFolder(pathToDelete);
Directory.Delete(pathToDelete, true);
}
// remove the message so next time we start, we don't try to delete it again.
File.Delete(toDeleteMessagePath);
}
// do application start here since we are running in the right place.
}
static string GetDesiredExePath()
{
// this is the directory we want the app running from.
string userPath = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.UserProfile);
return $"{userPath}\\documents\\MyExe".ToLower();
}
static bool IsRunningInDocuments()
{
// returns true if we are running from within the root of the desired directory.
string runningPath = Directory.GetCurrentDirectory();
return runningPath.StartsWith(GetDesiredExePath());
}
// this copy method is from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/58744/best-way-to-copy-the-entire-contents-of-a-directory-in-c-sharp
public static void CopyFolder(string SourcePath, string DestinationPath)
{
if (!Directory.Exists(DestinationPath))
{
Directory.CreateDirectory(DestinationPath);
}
//Now Create all of the directories
foreach (string dirPath in Directory.GetDirectories(SourcePath, "*",
SearchOption.AllDirectories))
Directory.CreateDirectory(DestinationPath + dirPath.Remove(0, SourcePath.Length));
//Copy all the files & Replaces any files with the same name
foreach (string newPath in Directory.GetFiles(SourcePath, "*.*",
SearchOption.AllDirectories))
File.Copy(newPath, DestinationPath + newPath.Remove(0, SourcePath.Length), true);
}
private static void CreateToDeleteMessage(string newPath, string runningPath)
{
// simply write a file with the folder we are in now so that this folder can be deleted later.
using (System.IO.StreamWriter file =
new System.IO.StreamWriter($"{newPath}\\CopiedFromMessage.txt", true))
{
file.Write(runningPath);
}
}
private static void ExecuteExe(string newExePath)
{
// launch the process which we just copied into documents.
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(newExePath);
}
private static void KillMyself()
{
// this is one way, depending if you are using console, forms, etc you can use more appropriate method to exit gracefully.
System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().Kill();
}
private static void KillAnyProcessesRunningFromFolder(string pathToDelete)
{
// kill any processes still running from the path we are about to delete, just incase they hung, etc.
var processes = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcesses()
.Where(p => p.MainModule.FileName.StartsWith(pathToDelete, true, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture));
foreach (var proc in processes)
{
proc.Kill();
}
}
}
}

Related

Copy only new or modified files/directories in C#

I am trying to create a simple “directory/file copy" console application in C#. What I need is to copy all folders and files (keeping the original hierarchy) from one drive to another, like from drive C:\Data to drive E:\Data.
However, I only want it to copy any NEW or MODIFIED files from the source to the destination.
If the file on the destination drive is newer than the one on the source drive, then it does not copy.
(the problem)
In the code I have, it's comparing file "abc.pdf" in the source with file "xyz.pdf" in the destination and thus is overwriting the destination file with whatever is in the source even though the destination file is newer. I am trying to figure out how to make it compare "abc.pdf" in the source to "abc.pdf" in the destination.
This works if I drill the source and destination down to a specific file, but when I back out to the folder level, it overwrites the destination file with the source file, even though the destination file is newer.
(my solutions – that didn’t work)
I thought by putting the “if (file.LastWriteTime > destination.LastWriteTime)” after the “foreach” command, that it would compare the files in the two folders, File1 source to File1 destination, but it’s not.
It seems I’m missing something in either the “FileInfo[]”, “foreach” or “if” statements to make this a one-to-one comparison. I think maybe some reference to the “Path.Combine” statement or a “SearchOption.AllDirectories”, but I’m not sure.
Any suggestions?
As you can see from my basic code sample, I'm new to C# so please put your answer in simple terms.
Thank you.
Here is the code I have tried, but it’s not working.
class Copy
{
public static void CopyDirectory(DirectoryInfo source, DirectoryInfo destination)
{
if (!destination.Exists)
{
destination.Create();
}
// Copy files.
FileInfo[] files = source.GetFiles();
FileInfo[] destFiles = destination.GetFiles();
foreach (FileInfo file in files)
foreach (FileInfo fileD in destFiles)
// Copy only modified files
if (file.LastWriteTime > fileD.LastWriteTime)
{
file.CopyTo(Path.Combine(destination.FullName,
file.Name), true);
}
// Copy all new files
else
if (!fileD.Exists)
{
file.CopyTo(Path.Combine(destination.FullName, file.Name), true);
}
// Process subdirectories.
DirectoryInfo[] dirs = source.GetDirectories();
foreach (DirectoryInfo dir in dirs)
{
// Get destination directory.
string destinationDir = Path.Combine(destination.FullName, dir.Name);
// Call CopyDirectory() recursively.
CopyDirectory(dir, new DirectoryInfo(destinationDir));
}
}
}
You can just take the array of files in "source" and check for a matching name in "destination"
/// <summary>
/// checks whether the target file needs an update (if it doesn't exist: it needs one)
/// </summary>
public static bool NeedsUpdate(FileInfo localFile, DirectoryInfo localDir, DirectoryInfo backUpDir)
{
bool needsUpdate = false;
if (!File.Exists(Path.Combine(backUpDir.FullName, localFile.Name)))
{
needsUpdate = true;
}
else
{
FileInfo backUpFile = new FileInfo(Path.Combine(backUpDir.FullName, localFile.Name));
DateTime lastBackUp = backUpFile.LastWriteTimeUtc;
DateTime lastChange = localFile.LastWriteTimeUtc;
if (lastChange != lastBackUp)
{
needsUpdate = true;
}
else
{/*no change*/}
}
return needsUpdate;
}
Update:
I modified my code with the suggestions above and all went well. It did exactly as I expected.
However, the problem I ran into was the amount of time it took run the application on a large folder. (containing 6,000 files and 5 sub-folders)
On a small folder, (28 files in 5 sub-folders) it only took a few seconds to run. But, on the larger folder it took 35 minutes to process only 1,300 files.
Solution:
The code below will do the same thing but much faster. This new version processed 6,000 files in about 10 seconds. It processed 40,000 files in about 1 minute and 50 seconds.
What this new code does (and doesn’t do)
If the destination folder is empty, copy all from the source to the destination.
If the destination has some or all of the same files / folders as the source, compare and copy any new or modified files from the source to the destination.
If the destination file is newer than the source, don’t copy.
So, here’s the code to make it happen. Enjoy and share.
Thanks to everyone who helped me get a better understanding of this.
using System;
using System.IO;
namespace VSU1vFileCopy
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
const string Src_FOLDER = #"C:\Data";
const string Dest_FOLDER = #"E:\Data";
string[] originalFiles = Directory.GetFiles(Src_FOLDER, "*", SearchOption.AllDirectories);
Array.ForEach(originalFiles, (originalFileLocation) =>
{
FileInfo originalFile = new FileInfo(originalFileLocation);
FileInfo destFile = new FileInfo(originalFileLocation.Replace(Src_FOLDER, Dest_FOLDER));
if (destFile.Exists)
{
if (originalFile.Length > destFile.Length)
{
originalFile.CopyTo(destFile.FullName, true);
}
}
else
{
Directory.CreateDirectory(destFile.DirectoryName);
originalFile.CopyTo(destFile.FullName, false);
}
});
}
}
}

Application: Application Launcher, can't Move directory, it's being used by another process

I'm writing application launcher as a Window Application in C#, VS 2017. Currently, having problem with this piece of code:
if (System.IO.Directory.Exists(extractPath))
{
string[] files = System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(extractPath);
string[] dirs = Directory.GetDirectories(extractPath);
// Copy the files and overwrite destination files if they already exist.
foreach (string s in files)
{
// Use static Path methods to extract only the file name from the path.
var fileName = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(s);
var destFile = System.IO.Path.Combine(oldPath, fileName);
System.IO.File.Move(s, destFile);
}
foreach (string dir in dirs)
{
//var dirSplit = dir.Split('\\');
//var last = dirSplit.Last();
//if (last != "Resources")
//{
var fileName = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(dir);
var destFile = System.IO.Path.Combine(oldPath, fileName);
System.IO.Directory.Move(dir, destFile);
//}
}
}
I'm getting well known error
"The process cannot access the file 'XXX' because it is being used by another process."
I was looking for solution to fix it, found several on MSDN and StackOvervflow, but my problem is quite specific. I cannot move only 1 directory to another, which is Resources folder of my main application:
Here is my explanation why problem is specific:
I'm not having any issues with moving other files from parent directory. Error occurs only when loop reaches /Resources directory.
At first, I was thinking that it's beeing used by VS instantion, in which I've had main app opened. Nothing have changed after closing VS and killing process.
I've copied and moved whole project to another directory. Never opened it in VS nor started via *.exe file, to make sure that none of files in new, copied directory, is used by any process.
Finally, I've restarted PC.
I know that this error is pretty common when you try to Del/Move files, but in my case, I'm sure that it's being used only by my launcher app. Here is a little longer sample code to show what files operation I'm actually doing:
private void RozpakujRepo()
{
string oldPath = #"path\Debug Kopia\Old";
string extractPath = #"path\Debug Kopia";
var tempPath = #"path\ZipRepo\RexTempRepo.zip";
if (System.IO.File.Exists(tempPath) == true)
{
System.IO.File.Delete(tempPath);
}
System.IO.Compression.ZipFile.CreateFromDirectory(extractPath, tempPath);
if (System.IO.Directory.Exists(oldPath))
{
DeleteDirectory(oldPath);
}
if (!System.IO.Directory.Exists(oldPath))
{
System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(oldPath);
}
if (System.IO.Directory.Exists(extractPath))
{
string[] files = System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(extractPath);
string[] dirs = Directory.GetDirectories(extractPath);
// Copy the files and overwrite destination files if they already exist.
foreach (string s in files)
{
// Use static Path methods to extract only the file name from the path.
var fileName = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(s);
var destFile = System.IO.Path.Combine(oldPath, fileName);
System.IO.File.Move(s, destFile);
}
foreach (string dir in dirs)
{
//var dirSplit = dir.Split('\\');
//var last = dirSplit.Last();
//if (last != "Resources")
//{
var fileName = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(dir);
var destFile = System.IO.Path.Combine(oldPath, fileName);
System.IO.Directory.Move(dir, destFile);
//}
}
}
string zipPath = #"path\ZipRepo\RexRepo.zip";
ZipFile.ExtractToDirectory(zipPath, extractPath);
}
And now, my questions:
Can it be related to file types (.png, .ico, .bmp) ?
Can it be related to fact, that those resources files are being used like, as, for example .exe file icon in my main application? Or just because those are resources files?
Is there anything else what I'm missing and what can cause the error?
EDIT:
To clarify:
There are 2 apps:
Main Application
Launcher Application (to launch Main Application)
And Resources folder is Main Application/Resources, I'm moving it while I'm doing application version update.
It appeared that problem is in different place than in /Resources directory. Actually problem was with /Old directory, because it caused inifinite recurrence.

How to make windows read all .dll files while scanning the c: drive [closed]

Closed. This question needs debugging details. It is not currently accepting answers.
Edit the question to include desired behavior, a specific problem or error, and the shortest code necessary to reproduce the problem. This will help others answer the question.
Closed 6 years ago.
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I am trying to make file scanner that scans for dlls. I try to scan my C: Drive but it doesn't scan the whole thing it just scans the portion with some random .txt and .sys files
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Threading;
namespace DLLScanner
{
class CheaterBeater
{
static System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection log = new System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection();
static void Main ()
{
string[] drives = System.Environment.GetLogicalDrives ();
foreach (string dr in drives) {
System.IO.DriveInfo di = new System.IO.DriveInfo (dr);
if (!di.IsReady) {
Console.WriteLine ("The drive {0} could not be read or processed (32 Bit System)", di.Name);
continue;
}
System.IO.DirectoryInfo rootDir = di.RootDirectory;
WalkDirectoryTree (rootDir);
}
Console.WriteLine ("These are files with restricted access or could not be processed:");
foreach (string s in log) {
Console.WriteLine (s);
}
Console.WriteLine ("Press any key to exit");
Console.ReadKey ();
}
static void WalkDirectoryTree (System.IO.DirectoryInfo root)
{
System.IO.FileInfo[] files = null;
System.IO.DirectoryInfo[] subDirs = null;
// First, process all the files directly under this folder
try {
files = root.GetFiles ("*.*");
} catch (UnauthorizedAccessException e) {
log.Add (e.Message);
} catch (System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException e) {
Console.WriteLine (e.Message);
}
if (files != null) {
foreach (System.IO.FileInfo fi in files) {
Console.WriteLine (fi.FullName);
}
}
} }
}
Any help is appreciated :)
If you like to search not only the root directory you should use an overload of the DirectoryInfo.GetFiles method.
You are now able to pass System.IO.SearchOption type to the method to tell the method you want to search all subdirectories.
Finally it should look like this:
root.GetFiles("*", SearchOption.AllDirectories);
but if you like to search for dll files you should specify it directly like this:
root.GetFiles("*.dll", SearchOption.AllDirectories);
BUT as already mentioned:
You should not do that. It will take long time to run and make the
hard drive work uselessly as there are practically no useful reason to
do that.
He is perfectly right, it a verry big operation to search through your complete hard drive. But if you dont use it in production why not :)
I dont know why people are downvoting your question...

WinForm settings not saving on Windows Shut down

I have a Winform program I wrote for a university so they could run test files.
The program is targeted at .NET 4.5 and was developed and run on Windows 7.
To make the running of files easy for the technicians I added the ability to save the paths to the test files. The file path is stored in a settings file (ProgSettings.settings) under the variable "RunNames".
When the save button is pressed I run a validation to ensure the test file at the end of the path exists and is valid before adding it to the RunNames list:
/*
*Function: SaveButton_Click(sender, e)
*Notes: responds to the button click "Save"
* tries to save file (if valid) to settings
*/
private void SaveButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (ValidateFile(TrackFileName.Text))
{
string displayName = updateLinkNames(TrackFileName.Text).ToUpper();
if (!ListOfTracks.Items.Contains(displayName))
{
ListOfTracks.Items.Add(displayName);
runNames.Add(TrackFileName.Text);
}
updateSettings();
}
}
/*
*Function: ValidateFile(fileName)
*Notes: called from save button click
* checks validity of the file path
*/
private bool ValidateFile(string fileName)
{
fileName = fileName.ToUpper();
FileToRun.FileName = fileName;
validFile = System.IO.File.Exists(fileName);
if(fileName != null && fileName != "" && fileName.EndsWith(".TXT") && validFile)
{
return true;
}
else
{
return false;
}
}
/*
*Function: updateSettings()
*Notes: updates the settings with the valid path
*/
private void updateSettings()
{
string value = String.Join(",", runNames.Select(i => i.ToString()).ToArray());
ProgSettings.Default.RunNames = value;
ProgSettings.Default.Save();
}
(For those of you unfamiliar with .settings they store the basic types available on C#, there are ways to include arrays as well but the simplest solution is to concatenate the different parts of the array in a string with a separator - in my case ",").
Then when I load the program again I populate a list of checkboxes using the a getSavedFiles() function below.
private List<string> getSavedFiles()
{
string localRunNames = ProgSettings.Default.RunNames.ToUpper();
string[] arr = localRunNames.Split(',').Select(s => Convert.ToString(s)).ToArray();
return arr.Cast<String>().ToList();
}
The settings works correctly on both my work computer and my personal laptop I did testing on. However, now the program is in use at the university they are saying that after shutting down the computer the next time the run the program all the saved file paths are gone.
Is this due to how to how the university managers users accounts on the computer? Or is there some other reason for this?
Was there another alternative to storing setting information for cases where .settings files don't work? (The only other solution I can think of is having the program write a config.txt file which I would prefer not to do encase the application is used somewhere it won't having writing permissions)
Below is a link to a question about the best practice to save application settings:
Best practice to save application settings

Some upgrades to my CopyFiles function C#

I managed to came up with function for my windows form program that will copy files from one directory to another and doesn't require exact path to directory as long as my program is in the correct directory (that part was really important).
I need to upgrade CopyFile function that I use in my program to make it do two more things:
Overwrite files in dir2 using files from dir1.
Let user know that function did it's job (either by attaching progess bar to it or something way simpler like windows messagebox with custom text on it).
So anyway thats my code:
private static void CopyFiles(string source, string destiny, string pattern = "*.*")
{
DirectoryInfo dir1 = new DirectoryInfo(source);
DirectoryInfo dir2 = new DirectoryInfo(destiny);
if (!dir1.Exists)
throw new ArgumentException(source);
else
{
if (!dir2.Exists)
dir2.Create();
FileInfo[] files = dir1.GetFiles(pattern);
foreach (var item in files)
{
item.CopyTo(Path.Combine(dir2.FullName, item.Name));
}
}
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
CopyFiles(#".\FolderI\FolderII\", #".\FolderA\FolderB","a.*");
}
CopyTo has an override that takes in a boolean stating whether or not to overwrite a file
item.CopyTo(Path.Combine(dir2.FullName, item.Name), True);
And change the return type of the method to a boolean which can say whether it was successful or not
private static bool CopyFiles(string source, string destiny, string pattern = "*.*")
... return True
You will need to update your code to return false if any errors (Hint: Try-Catch) or if anything else goes wrong

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