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How do I fix this small (and probably simple) DirectoryInfo Syntax error?

Pretty straight forward. Press a button, select a path from dialogbox, searches path's subdirectories, and shows them in messagebox. But have ran into a couple problems.
private void InputButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
//CHECKS TO SEE IF "OK" WAS CLICKED IN DIALOGBOX
if (fbd.ShowDialog() == System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK)
{
}
//SELECTS DIRECTORY PATH
Path.GetDirectoryName(fbd.SelectedPath);
string path = Path.GetDirectoryName(fbd.SelectedPath);
InputDirectory_Box.Text = path;
//SELECTS SUBDIRECTORIES FROM PATH
string[] subdirectories = DirectoryInfo.GetDirectories(path);
for (int i = 0; subdirectories.Length+1 >= 0; i++)
{
MessageBox.Show(subdirectories[i]);
}
}
The line string[] subdirectories = DirectoryInfo.GetDirectories(path); says it needs an object reference for the non-static field. I've already declared path to give it the string to search. I used this exact same line of code and syntax for the Directory class (not the DirectoryInfo class) and it was legal. However, i was having a problem when using Directory.GetDirectories. It was finding the path's parent directories instead of the subdirectories for some reason.
If anyone could shine some light on:
A - why I'm getting this syntax error
B - why it was returning parent directories instead of sub-directories from the path
Then you would be a hero. Many thanks
PS I'm completely new to programming and don't know what enumerating/enumeration is quite yet so if it has something to do with that, I'd appreciate maybe a small example or some context of what it is.

GetDirectories is an instance method. You need to have an instance of DirectoryInfo to use it.
string path = fbd.SelectedPath;
// Make a reference to a directory.
DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(path);
// Get a reference to each directory in that directory.
string[] subdirectories = di.GetDirectories();

The static class would be Directory
Directory.GetDirectories(path);
The first of those two lines is useless...
Path.GetDirectoryName(fbd.SelectedPath);
string path = Path.GetDirectoryName(fbd.SelectedPath);
Next thing: I do not understand that loop... what do you want to achieve with Length+1>=0?
To print out all directories of any list/array you have two choices: A for loop, or even better if you don't need the index of the items, a foreach loop.
Look at these examples:
string[] subdirectories = Directory.GetDirectories(path);
for (int i = 0; i < subdirectories.Length; i++)
{
MessageBox.Show(subdirectories[i]);
}
string[] subdirectories = Directory.GetDirectories(path);
foreach (string directory in subdirectories)
{
MessageBox.Show(directory);
}
hope this helps.

Get directories and files with recursion?

Is possible to get all directories, subdirectories and files with recursion.
I do this because i want to increase my programming logic, and learn how recursion work.
I know to do that with this way:
string path = "D://";
string rezdir,newpath;
DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(path);
DirectoryInfo[] dir = di.GetDirectories().ToArray();
for (int i = 0; i < di.GetDirectories().Length; i++)
{
Console.WriteLine(dir[i].ToString());
}
Console.WriteLine("\n\nChoose File: ");
rezdir = Console.ReadLine();
newpath = path + rezdir;
di = new DirectoryInfo(newpath);
dir = di.GetDirectories().ToArray();
for (int i = 0; i < di.GetDirectories().Length; i++)
{
Console.WriteLine(dir[i].ToString());
}
Console.ReadKey();
But i don't do that with recursion way, so ff someone can to do this, i'll be grateful to him.

Going by the code you posted - you seem to want some user interaction - so try something like this:
public static class RecursiveTest
{
public static string Foo(DirectoryInfo currentPath)
{
if (!currentPath.Exists) return string.Empty;
foreach (var directory in currentPath.EnumerateDirectories())
Console.WriteLine("Directory {0}", directory.Name);
foreach (var file in currentPath.EnumerateFiles())
Console.WriteLine("File {0}", file.Name);
while(true)
{
Console.WriteLine("Choose directory or file: ");
string chosenPath = Console.ReadLine();
string newPath = Path.Combine(currentPath.FullName, chosenPath);
if(Directory.Exists(newPath))
return Foo(new DirectoryInfo(newPath));
if(File.Exists(newPath))
return newPath;
Console.WriteLine("File {0} doesn't exist!", newPath);
}
}
}
And call with something like this:
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine(RecursiveTest.Foo(new DirectoryInfo(#"d:\dev")));
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
HTH

I will avoid coding, because this is a valuable learning exercise. Try completing it yourself: once you do, you'll know that you understand recursion.
To be recursive, a method needs to call itself. Imagine that a method
public static void ShowDirectory(int indentationLevel, DirectoryInfo path)
is already written for you. This makes it easier to write the body:
Get all files in the directory, and print their names in the loop
Get all directories in the directory, and show their content at the next indentation level. You need another loop for that.
The first step is a simple exercise in writing loops. The second exercise becomes easy, too, because you can think of the ShowDirectory as pre-written.

Yeah, it's possible. But I do recommend that you first take a grasp of what recursion is. To put it simply, a recursion has a one-time executing part, and many-time executing part. That one time triggers the many-time part.
In this question, the one-time execution part might be to get the list of all directories beneath the root directory.
Then for each directory, you get all the sub-directories and files. This is the many-times part. However, to run a batch of codes many times, you need to bundle them into a callable routine, or procedure, or method, or function, whatever you call it. Just code bundle.
public void DoDirectories()
{
// one-time part; get a list of directories to start with.
List<string> rootDirectories = Directory.GetDirectories("c:\\").ToList();
foreach (string rootDirectory in rootDirectories)
{
GetSubdirectories(rootDirectory);
}
}
public List<string> GetSubdirectories(string parentDirectory)
{
List<string> subdirecotries = Directory.GetDirectories(
parentDirectory, "*.*", SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly).ToList();
foreach (string subdirectory in subdirecotries)
{
GetSubdirectories(subdirectory); // recursing happens here
}
return subdirecotries;
}

How to navigate a few folders up?

One option would be to do System.IO.Directory.GetParent() a few times. Is there a more graceful way of travelling a few folders up from where the executing assembly resides?
What I am trying to do is find a text file that resides one folder above the application folder. But the assembly itself is inside the bin, which is a few folders deep in the application folder.

Other simple way is to do this:
string path = #"C:\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Folder4";
string newPath = Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(path, #"..\..\"));
Note This goes two levels up. The result would be:
newPath = #"C:\Folder1\Folder2\";
Additional Note
Path.GetFullPath normalizes the final result based on what environment your code is running on windows/mac/mobile/...

if c:\folder1\folder2\folder3\bin is the path then the following code will return the path base folder of bin folder
//string directory=System.IO.Directory.GetParent(Environment.CurrentDirectory).ToString());
string directory=System.IO.Directory.GetParent(Environment.CurrentDirectory).ToString();
ie,c:\folder1\folder2\folder3
if you want folder2 path then you can get the directory by
string directory = System.IO.Directory.GetParent(System.IO.Directory.GetParent(Environment.CurrentDirectory).ToString()).ToString();
then you will get path as c:\folder1\folder2\

You can use ..\path to go one level up, ..\..\path to go two levels up from path.
You can use Path class too.
C# Path class

This is what worked best for me:
string parentOfStartupPath = Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(Application.StartupPath, #"../"));
Getting the 'right' path wasn't the problem, adding '../' obviously does that, but after that, the given string isn't usable, because it will just add the '../' at the end.
Surrounding it with Path.GetFullPath() will give you the absolute path, making it usable.

public static string AppRootDirectory()
{
string _BaseDirectory = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;
return Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(_BaseDirectory, #"..\..\"));
}

Maybe you could use a function if you want to declare the number of levels and put it into a function?
private String GetParents(Int32 noOfLevels, String currentpath)
{
String path = "";
for(int i=0; i< noOfLevels; i++)
{
path += #"..\";
}
path += currentpath;
return path;
}
And you could call it like this:
String path = this.GetParents(4, currentpath);

C#
string upTwoDir = Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(System.AppContext.BaseDirectory, #"..\..\"));

The following method searches a file beginning with the application startup path (*.exe folder). If the file is not found there, the parent folders are searched until either the file is found or the root folder has been reached. null is returned if the file was not found.
public static FileInfo FindApplicationFile(string fileName)
{
string startPath = Path.Combine(Application.StartupPath, fileName);
FileInfo file = new FileInfo(startPath);
while (!file.Exists) {
if (file.Directory.Parent == null) {
return null;
}
DirectoryInfo parentDir = file.Directory.Parent;
file = new FileInfo(Path.Combine(parentDir.FullName, file.Name));
}
return file;
}
Note: Application.StartupPath is usually used in WinForms applications, but it works in console applications as well; however, you will have to set a reference to the System.Windows.Forms assembly. You can replace Application.StartupPath by
Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location) if you prefer.
I use this strategy to find configuration and resource files. This allows me to share them for multiple applications or for Debug and Release versions of an application by placing them in a common parent folder.

Hiding a looped call to Directory.GetParent(path) inside an static method is the way to go.
Messing around with ".." and Path.Combine will ultimately lead to bugs related to the operation system or simply fail due to mix up between relative paths and absolute paths.
public static class PathUtils
{
public static string MoveUp(string path, int noOfLevels)
{
string parentPath = path.TrimEnd(new[] { '/', '\\' });
for (int i=0; i< noOfLevels; i++)
{
parentPath = Directory.GetParent(parentPath ).ToString();
}
return parentPath;
}
}

this may help
string parentOfStartupPath = Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(Application.StartupPath, #"../../")) + "Orders.xml";
if (File.Exists(parentOfStartupPath))
{
// file found
}

If you know the folder you want to navigate to, find the index of it then substring.
var ind = Directory.GetCurrentDirectory().ToString().IndexOf("Folderame");
string productFolder = Directory.GetCurrentDirectory().ToString().Substring(0, ind);

I have some virtual directories and I cannot use Directory methods. So, I made a simple split/join function for those interested. Not as safe though.
var splitResult = filePath.Split(new[] {'/', '\\'}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
var newFilePath = Path.Combine(filePath.Take(splitResult.Length - 1).ToArray());
So, if you want to move 4 up, you just need to change the 1 to 4 and add some checks to avoid exceptions.

Path parsing via System.IO.Directory.GetParent is possible, but would require to run same function multiple times.
Slightly simpler approach is to threat path as a normal string, split it by path separator, take out what is not necessary and then recombine string back.
var upperDir = String.Join(Path.DirectorySeparatorChar, dir.Split(Path.DirectorySeparatorChar).SkipLast(2));
Of course you can replace 2 with amount of levels you need to jump up.
Notice also that this function call to Path.GetFullPath (other answers in here) will query whether path exists using file system. Using basic string operation does not require any file system operations.

Move multiple sub folders to a different directory and keep the folder names

Please could a C# expert help with a simple problem which for some strange reason I just can't seem to work out? I'm trying to move multiple sub folders in the current directory to a new directory and keep the subfolder name, see below:
public string currentDirectory = System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("LOCALAPPDATA") + #"\Test\CurrentFolder\";
public string newDirectory = System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("LOCALAPPDATA") + #"\Test\NewFolder\";
private void btnMoveFolder_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
string[] subdirectoryEntries = Directory.GetDirectories(currentDirectory);
try
{
foreach (string subCurrentDirectory in subdirectoryEntries)
{
Directory.Move(subCurrentDirectory, newDirectory);
}
}
catch (System.Exception)
{
Log("Problem with moving the directory.");
}
}
At the moment, I only seem to be able to move one folder instead of all of the them.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I suppose you want this:
Directory.Move(subCurrentDirectory,
Path.Combine(
newDirectory,
Path.GetFileName(subCurrentDirectory)));

Try this out:
DirectoryInfo subfolder = new DirectoryInfo(#"OLDPATH\DirectoryToMove");
subfolder.MoveTo(#"NEWPATH\DirectoryToMove");
Just make sure you include the name of the directory to move in both the old AND new filepaths.
In general DirectoryInfo and FileInfo are much more useful than Directory and File in most situations.

How do I compare one collection of files to another in c#?

I am just learning C# (have been fiddling with it for about 2 days now) and I've decided that, for leaning purposes, I will rebuild an old app I made in VB6 for syncing files (generally across a network).
When I wrote the code in VB 6, it worked approximately like this:
Create a Scripting.FileSystemObject
Create directory objects for the source and destination
Create file listing objects for the source and destination
Iterate through the source object, and check to see if it exists in the destination
if not, create it
if so, check to see if the source version is newer/larger, and if so, overwrite the other
So far, this is what I have:
private bool syncFiles(string sourcePath, string destPath) {
DirectoryInfo source = new DirectoryInfo(sourcePath);
DirectoryInfo dest = new DirectoryInfo(destPath);
if (!source.Exists) {
LogLine("Source Folder Not Found!");
return false;
}
if (!dest.Exists) {
LogLine("Destination Folder Not Found!");
return false;
}
FileInfo[] sourceFiles = source.GetFiles();
FileInfo[] destFiles = dest.GetFiles();
foreach (FileInfo file in sourceFiles) {
// check exists on file
}
if (optRecursive.Checked) {
foreach (DirectoryInfo subDir in source.GetDirectories()) {
// create-if-not-exists destination subdirectory
syncFiles(sourcePath + subDir.Name, destPath + subDir.Name);
}
}
return true;
}
I have read examples that seem to advocate using the FileInfo or DirectoryInfo objects to do checks with the "Exists" property, but I am specifically looking for a way to search an existing collection/list of files, and not live checks to the file system for each file, since I will be doing so across the network and constantly going back to a multi-thousand-file directory is slow slow slow.
Thanks in Advance.

The GetFiles() method will only get you files that does exist. It doesn't make up random files that doesn't exist. So all you have to do is to check if it exists in the other list.
Something in the lines of this could work:
var sourceFiles = source.GetFiles();
var destFiles = dest.GetFiles();
foreach (var file in sourceFiles)
{
if(!destFiles.Any(x => x.Name == file.Name))
{
// Do whatever
}
}
Note: You have of course no guarantee that something hasn't changed after you have done the calls to GetFiles(). For example, a file could have been deleted or renamed if you try to copy it later.
Could perhaps be done nicer somehow by using the Except method or something similar. For example something like this:
var sourceFiles = source.GetFiles();
var destFiles = dest.GetFiles();
var sourceFilesMissingInDestination = sourceFiles.Except(destFiles, new FileNameComparer());
foreach (var file in sourceFilesMissingInDestination)
{
// Do whatever
}
Where the FileNameComparer is implemented like so:
public class FileNameComparer : IEqualityComparer<FileInfo>
{
public bool Equals(FileInfo x, FileInfo y)
{
return Equals(x.Name, y.Name);
}
public int GetHashCode(FileInfo obj)
{
return obj.Name.GetHashCode();
}
}
Untested though :p

One little detail, instead of
sourcePath + subDir.Name
I would use
System.IO.Path.Combine(sourcePath, subDir.Name)
Path does reliable, OS independent operations on file- and foldernames.
Also I notice optRecursive.Checked popping out of nowhere. As a matter of good design, make that a parameter:
bool syncFiles(string sourcePath, string destPath, bool checkRecursive)
And since you mention it may be used for large numbers of files, keep an eye out for .NET 4, it has an IEnumerable replacement for GetFiles() that will let you process this in a streaming fashion.