How to recursively list all the files in a directory in C#?

Question

How to recursively list all the files in a directory and child directories in C#?

Answer 1

I prefer to use DirectoryInfo because I can get FileInfo's, not just strings.

        string baseFolder = @"C:\temp";
        DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(baseFolder);

        string searchPattern = "*.xml";

        ICollection matchingFileInfos = di.GetFiles(searchPattern, SearchOption.AllDirectories)
            .Select(x => x)
            .ToList();

I do this in case in the future I need future filtering..based on the properties of FileInfo.

        string baseFolder = @"C:\temp";
        DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(baseFolder);

        string searchPattern = "*.xml";

        ICollection matchingFileInfos = di.GetFiles(searchPattern, SearchOption.AllDirectories)
            .Where(x => x.LastWriteTimeUtc < DateTimeOffset.Now)
            .Select(x => x)
            .ToList();

I can also resort back to strings if need be. (and still am future proofed for filters/where-clause stuff.

        string baseFolder = @"C:\temp";
        DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(baseFolder);

        string searchPattern = "*.xml";

        ICollection matchingFileNames = di.GetFiles(searchPattern, SearchOption.AllDirectories)
            .Select(x => x.FullName)
            .ToList();

Note that "." is a valid search pattern if you want to filer by extension.