Beginning C# 3.0

13.1. Directories

Anytime I want to explore a new area in C#, the first thing I do is find out which namespaces are involved with that area. Since we're going to discuss file input and output (I/O), I simply typed in using System. at the top of the program and started looking for namespaces that may apply. Sure enough, up popped System.IO. Just highlight IO and press the F1 key and you'll get information about the IO namespace. All kinds of interesting things come up, but let's concentrate first on those classes that deal with directory and drive information.

13.1.1. The DriveInfo Class

Just as Ed McMahon used to say on the Johnny Carson show, "Everything you could ever possibly want to know . . . " about a disk drive is in the DriveInfo class. A few of the more useful methods and properties are presented in Table 13-1.

Table 13-1. Table 13-1

Method or Property	Description
GetDrives()	Returns an array with all of the logical drives of the computer
AvailableFreeSpace	Gives the amount of free disk space (in bytes) on a drive
DriveFormat	Returns the format for the drive (such as NTFS or FAT32)
DriveType	Returns the type of drive (such as fixed, removable, RAM, etc.)
Name	Gives the name of the drive
TotalFreeSpace	Gives the amount of unused space on the drive
TotalSize	Gives the capacity of the drive

If you look in the IO namespace, you will also discover that there are classes named Directory and DirectoryInfo. These two classes present related, albeit different, information.

13.1.2. Directory ...