How to Generate unique file names in C#

Question

I have implemented an algorithm that will generate unique names for files that will save on hard drive. I\'m appending DateTime: Hours,Minutes,Second an

Answer 1

I've written a simple recursive function that generates file names like Windows does, by appending a sequence number prior to the file extension.

Given a desired file path of C:\MyDir\MyFile.txt, and the file already exists, it returns a final file path of C:\MyDir\MyFile_1.txt.

It is called like this:

var desiredPath = @"C:\MyDir\MyFile.txt";
var finalPath = UniqueFileName(desiredPath);

private static string UniqueFileName(string path, int count = 0)
{
    if (count == 0)
    {
        if (!File.Exists(path))
        {
            return path;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        var candidatePath = string.Format(
            @"{0}\{1}_{2}{3}",
            Path.GetDirectoryName(path),
            Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(path),
            count,
            Path.GetExtension(path));

        if (!File.Exists(candidatePath))
        {
            return candidatePath;
        }
    }

    count++;
    return UniqueFileName(path, count);
}