Can i create 2 SubDirectories at same time C#?

Question

I want to create a simple directory tree like this one, although it doesn't need to have the same name

Do I need to write it like this:

Directory.CreateDirectory("/home/XXX/Documents/Users/Pepe/datos/");
Directory.CreateDirectory("/home/XXX/Documents/Users/Juan");

Is there any option to create "Pepe" and "Juan" in the same string path?

Answer 1

No there's nothing baked into the BCL to do that; you have to call CreateDirectory for every one.

If you have a collection of directory paths, you can put that inside a loop:

foreach (string dirPath in directoryPaths)
{
    Directory.CreateDirectory(dirPath);
}

Answer 2

To post an answer and offer an alternative, if you only wanted to have one usage of the CreateDirectory method then you could have a method that takes a parameter of params string[] and pass in the directories there when calling the method.

The code would look like so

private static void CreateDirectories(params string[] directories)
{
    foreach (string directory in directories)
    {
        Directory.CreateDirectory(directory);
    }
}

You can call it with

CreateDirectories("/home/XXX/Documents/Users/Pepe/datos/", "/home/XXX/Documents/Users/Juan");

Or you can pass in a string array

CreateDirectories(new [] { "/home/XXX/Documents/Users/Pepe/datos/", "/home/XXX/Documents/Users/Juan"});

I reduce the usage of the System.IO methods doing the above, then I interface the class which allows me to create mocks and then unit test the software I create without performing I/O operation, which brings one scenario where you could use the above except it wouldn't be static.

Answer 3

It sounds like you have a common root directory:

/home/XXX/Documents/Users

and you want to add sub-directories from there. If that is the case and if the goal is to only have to reference the sub-directories, then I would go with @ColinM's approach, but modify it slightly as follows:

private static void CreateDirectories(string directoryRoot, params string[] directories)
{
    foreach (string directory in directories)
    {
        Directory.CreateDirectory(Path.Combine(directoryRoot, directory));
    }
}

Now when you call it, you only need to mention the root once

CreateDirectories("/home/XXX/Documents/Users", "Pepe/datos/", "Juan");

The nice thing about Path.Combine is that you don't have to worry about having a slash / that is either trailing in the directoryRoot or leading in any of the directories--it will make sure it is formatted correctly in the end.

Of course, if you take this approach, you'll need to decide what happens if directories is null--do you create the directoryRoot (assuming it isn't already there), do you throw an error, or do you just return?

Answer 4

You can create like.

System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory("c:/Dir1/Dir2/Dir3");

Think there is no Dir1 at root of c: drive.

It will create folder structure as like Dir1-->Dir2-->Dir3.

If Die1 is there then it will create rest of sub directory.

Same for multiple level.