Delete Folder and Its Content using C#

Submitted by donbermoy on Thursday, June 5, 2014 - 20:36.
In this tutorial, i will going to teach you how to create a folder and its content using C#. I always got an error in creating this program prompted as "Directory is not empty" and it cannot be deleted. So, I came up this program and studied again the possible code to fix this. Now, let's start this tutorial! 1. Let's start with creating a Windows Form Application in C# for this tutorial by following the following steps in Microsoft Visual Studio: Go to File, click New Project, and choose Windows Application and name your project as Delete Folder. 2. Next, add only one Button named Button1 and labeled it as "Delete Folder". Add also TextBox named TextBox1 for our inputting the path of the folder that you want to delete. You must design your interface like this: design 3. To achieve that, first of all we need to include the following statement in the program code: using System.IO - This namespace has to precede the whole program code as it is higher in hierarchy for DirectoryInfo. In Fact, this is the concept of object oriented programming where DirectoryInfo is part of the namespace System.IO.
  1. using System;
  2. using System.Collections.Generic;
  3. using System.ComponentModel;
  4. using System.Data;
  5. using System.Drawing;
  6. using System.Text;
  7. using System.Windows.Forms;
  8.  
  9. using System.IO;
4. Now, to avoid an error saying Directory is not empty when we delete a folder, we will create a method named DeleteDirectory with string target_dir as String as parameter.
  1. public static void DeleteDirectory(string target)
  2.         {
  3.             string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(target);
  4.             string[] dir = Directory.GetDirectories(target);
  5.  
  6.             foreach (string file in files)
  7.             {
  8.                 File.SetAttributes(file, FileAttributes.Normal);
  9.                 File.Delete(file);
  10.             }
  11.  
  12.             foreach (string dir in dir)
  13.             {
  14.                 DeleteDirectory(dir);
  15.             }
  16.  
  17.             Directory.Delete(target, true);
  18.         }
The syntax Directory.Delete(target, true); will delete all the contents of the folder directory. If false, then the content will not be deleted. 5. Now to delete the folder, we will now code for Button1. We will just use the method above.
  1. private void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
  2.         {
  3.             DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(TextBox1.Text);
  4.             if (di.Exists)
  5.             {
  6.  
  7.                 DeleteDirectory(TextBox1.Text);
  8.                 MessageBox.Show("The directory was deleted successfully");
  9.                 TextBox1.Clear();
  10.             }
  11.             else
  12.             {
  13.                 MessageBox.Show(" Path is not found!", "Error" );
  14.                 TextBox1.Clear();
  15.             }
  16.         }
We have created an instance of DirectoryInfo that holds the path inputted in textbox1. If the directory is existed, then we have used the method DeleteDirectory and its textbox1 as the parameter. Otherwise, it will prompt the user that the path was not found. Press F5 to run the program. Output: output Full source code:
  1. using System;
  2. using System.Collections.Generic;
  3. using System.ComponentModel;
  4. using System.Data;
  5. using System.Drawing;
  6. using System.Text;
  7. using System.Windows.Forms;
  8.  
  9. using System.IO;
  10.  
  11. namespace Delete_Folder
  12. {
  13.     public partial class Form1 : Form
  14.     {
  15.         public Form1()
  16.         {
  17.             InitializeComponent();
  18.         }
  19.         public static void DeleteDirectory(string target)
  20.         {
  21.             string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(target);
  22.             string[] dir = Directory.GetDirectories(target);
  23.  
  24.             foreach (string file in files)
  25.             {
  26.                 File.SetAttributes(file, FileAttributes.Normal);
  27.                 File.Delete(file);
  28.             }
  29.  
  30.             foreach (string dir in dir)
  31.             {
  32.                 DeleteDirectory(dir);
  33.             }
  34.  
  35.             Directory.Delete(target, true);
  36.         }
  37.  
  38.         private void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
  39.         {
  40.             DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(TextBox1.Text);
  41.             if (di.Exists)
  42.             {
  43.  
  44.                 DeleteDirectory(TextBox1.Text);
  45.                 MessageBox.Show("The directory was deleted successfully");
  46.                 TextBox1.Clear();
  47.             }
  48.             else
  49.             {
  50.                 MessageBox.Show(" Path is not found!", "Error" );
  51.                 TextBox1.Clear();
  52.             }
  53.         }
  54.     }
  55. }
Best Regards, Engr. Lyndon Bermoy IT Instructor/System Developer/Android Developer/Freelance Programmer If you have some queries, feel free to contact the number or e-mail below. Mobile: 09488225971 Landline: 826-9296 E-mail:[email protected] Add and Follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donzzsky Visit and like my page on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/BermzISware
Tags
Delete Folder and Its Content using C#
DirectoryInfo
directory
delete folder
c#
csharp

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