C# FileInfo Class

The FileInfo class is used to deal with file and its operations in C#. It provides properties and methods that are used to create, delete and read file. It uses StreamWriter class to write data to the file. It is a part of System.IO namespace.

Class Signature

snippet

[SerializableAttribute]
[ComVisibleAttribute(true)]
public sealed class FileInfo : FileSystemInfo

Constructors

The following table contains constructors for the FileInfo class.

Constructor	Description
FileInfo(String)	It is used to initialize a new instance of the FileInfo class which acts as a wrapper for a file path.

C# FileInfo Properties

The following table contains properties of the FileInfo class.

Properties	Description
Attributes	It is used to get or set the attributes for the current file or directory.
CreationTime	It is used to get or set the creation time of the current file or directory.
Directory	It is used to get an instance of the parent directory.
DirectoryName	It is used to get a string representing the directory's full path.
Exists	It is used to get a value indicating whether a file exists.
FullName	It is used to get the full path of the directory or file.
IsReadOnly	It is used to get or set a value that determines if the current file is read only.
LastAccessTime	It is used to get or set the time from current file or directory was last accessed.
Length	It is used to get the size in bytes of the current file.
Name	It is used to get the name of the file.

Methods

The following table contains methods of the FileInfo class.

Method	Description
AppendText()	It is used to create a StreamWriter that appends text to the file represented by this instance of the FileInfo.
CopyTo(String)	It is used to copy an existing file to a new file.
Create()	It is used to create a file.
CreateText()	It is used to create a StreamWriter that writes a new text file.
Decrypt()	It is used to decrypt a file that was encrypted by the current account using the Encrypt method.
Delete()	It is used to permanently delete a file.
Encrypt()	It is used to encrypt a file so that only the account used to encrypt the file can decrypt it.
GetAccessControl()	It is used to get a FileSecurity object that encapsulates the access control list (ACL) entries.
MoveTo(String)	It is used to move a specified file to a new specified location.
Open(FileMode)	It is used to open a file in the specified mode.
OpenRead()	It is used to create a read-only FileStream.
OpenText()	It is used to create a StreamReader with UTF8 encoding that reads from an existing text file.
OpenWrite()	It is used to create a write-only FileStream.
Refresh()	It is used to refresh the state of the object.
Replace(String,String)	It is used to replace the contents of a specified file with the file described by the current FileInfo object.
ToString()	It is used to return the path as a string.

Creating a File

Example

snippet

using System;
using System.IO;
namespace CSharpProgram
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            try
            {
                // Specifying file location
                string loc = "F:\\abc.txt";
                // Creating FileInfo instance
                FileInfo file = new FileInfo(loc);
                // Creating an empty file
                file.Create();
                Console.WriteLine("File is created Successfuly");
            }catch(IOException e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Something went wrong: "+e);
            }
        }
    }
}

Output

File is created Successfully

We can see inside the F drive a file abc.txt is created. A screenshot is given below.

Writing to the file

Example

snippet

using System;
using System.IO;
namespace CSharpProgram
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            try
            {
                // Specifying file location
                string loc = "F:\\abc.txt";
                // Creating FileInfo instance
                FileInfo file = new FileInfo(loc);
                // Creating an file instance to write
                StreamWriter sw = file.CreateText();
                // Writing to the file
                sw.WriteLine("This text is written to the file by using StreamWriter class.");
                sw.Close();
            }catch(IOException e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Something went wrong: "+e);
            }
        }
    }
}

Reading text from the file

Example

snippet

using System;
using System.IO;
namespace CSharpProgram
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            try
            {
                // Specifying file to read
                string loc = "F:\\abc.txt";
                // Creating FileInfo instance
                FileInfo file = new FileInfo(loc);
                // Opening file to read
                StreamReader sr = file.OpenText();
                string data = "";
                while ((data = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
                {
                     Console.WriteLine(data);
                }
            }
            catch (IOException e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Something went wrong: " + e);
            }
        }
    }
}