C# Sanitize File Name

Question

I recently have been moving a bunch of MP3s from various locations into a repository. I had been constructing the new file names using the ID3 tags (thanks, TagLib-Sharp!),

Answer 1

I'm using the System.IO.Path.GetInvalidFileNameChars() method to check invalid characters and I've got no problems.

I'm using the following code:

foreach( char invalidchar in System.IO.Path.GetInvalidFileNameChars())
{
    filename = filename.Replace(invalidchar, '_');
}

Answer 2

Your code would be cleaner if you appended the directory and filename together and sanitized that rather than sanitizing them independently. As for sanitizing away the :, just take the 2nd character in the string. If it is equal to "replacechar", replace it with a colon. Since this app is for your own use, such a solution should be perfectly sufficient.

Answer 3

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

public class Program
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        try
        {
            var badString = "ABC\\DEF/GHI<JKL>MNO:PQR\"STU\tVWX|YZA*BCD?EFG";
            Console.WriteLine(badString);
            Console.WriteLine(SanitizeFileName(badString, '.'));
            Console.WriteLine(SanitizeFileName(badString));
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(ex.ToString());
        }
    }

    private static string SanitizeFileName(string fileName, char? replacement = null)
    {
        if (fileName == null) { return null; }
        if (fileName.Length == 0) { return ""; }

        var sb = new StringBuilder();
        var badChars = Path.GetInvalidFileNameChars().ToList();

        foreach (var @char in fileName)
        {
            if (badChars.Contains(@char)) 
            {
                if (replacement.HasValue)
                {
                    sb.Append(replacement.Value);
                }
                continue; 
            }
            sb.Append(@char);
        }
        return sb.ToString();
    }
}

Answer 4

A shorter solution:

var invalids = System.IO.Path.GetInvalidFileNameChars();
var newName = String.Join("_", origFileName.Split(invalids, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries) ).TrimEnd('.');

Answer 5

To clean up a file name you could do this

private static string MakeValidFileName( string name )
{
   string invalidChars = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Escape( new string( System.IO.Path.GetInvalidFileNameChars() ) );
   string invalidRegStr = string.Format( @"([{0}]*\.+$)|([{0}]+)", invalidChars );

   return System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace( name, invalidRegStr, "_" );
}

Answer 6

Here's an efficient lazy loading extension method based on Andre's code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace LT
{
    public static class Utility
    {
        static string invalidRegStr;

        public static string MakeValidFileName(this string name)
        {
            if (invalidRegStr == null)
            {
                var invalidChars = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Escape(new string(System.IO.Path.GetInvalidFileNameChars()));
                invalidRegStr = string.Format(@"([{0}]*\.+$)|([{0}]+)", invalidChars);
            }

            return System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(name, invalidRegStr, "_");
        }
    }
}