C# Cookbook

11.15. Parsing a Path

Problem

You need to separate the constituent parts of a path and place them into separate variables.

Solution

Use the static methods of the Path class:

public static void ParsePath(string path)
{
    string root = Path.GetPathRoot(path);
    string dirName = Path.GetDirectoryName(path);
    string fullFileName = Path.GetFileName(path);
    string fileExt = Path.GetExtension(path);
    string fileNameWithoutExt = Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(path);
    StringBuilder format = new StringBuilder( );
    format.Append("ParsePath of {0} breaks up into the following" +
           "pieces:\r\n\tRoot: {1}\r\n\t");
    format.Append("Directory Name: {2}\r\n\tFull File Name: {3}\r\n\t");
    format.Append("File Extension: {4}\r\n\tFile Name Without Extension: {5}\r\n");
    Console.WriteLine(format.ToString( ),path,root,dirName,
           fullFileName,fileExt,fileNameWithoutExt);
}

If the string @"c:\test\tempfile.txt" is passed to this method, the output would look like this:

ParsePath of C:\test\tempfile.txt breaks up into the following pieces:
        Root: C:\
        Directory Name: C:\test
        Full File Name: tempfile.txt
        File Extension: .txt
        File Name Without Extension: tempfile

Discussion

The Path class contains methods that can be used to parse a given path. Using these classes is much easier and less error-prone than writing path- and filename-parsing code. There are five main methods used to parse a path: GetPathRoot, GetDirectoryName, GetFileName, GetExtension, and GetFileNameWithoutExtension. Each has a single parameter, path, which represents ...