Path exists

Does a specific path exist on the disk? Consider a C# program that requires a certain directory—it might store settings files, data or images.

With a special method, we can ensure a directory exists. This can make the program more reliable when it starts—the directory will always exist (in normal situations).

An example

We can almost never be sure that a directory is present. The user may delete it, or it might be lost due to some other interaction on the system.

using System;
using System.IO;

class Program
{
    public static void EnsurePathExists(string path)
    {
        // ... Set to folder path we must ensure exists.
        try
        {
            // ... If the directory doesn't exist, create it.
            if (!Directory.Exists(path))
            {
                Directory.CreateDirectory(path);
            }
        }
        catch (Exception)
        {
            // Fail silently.
        }
    }

    static void Main()
    {
        // Test the method.
        EnsurePathExists(@"C:\programs\exampledir\");
        Console.WriteLine("DONE");
    }
}
DONE

Notes, above program

This method checks to see if the path exists. If the path does not exist, we attempt to create the location—we try to ensure the location exists.

Notes, redundant check

The Directory.CreateDirectory method will do nothing if the directory already exists. So we do not need to call Directory.Exists first.

A summary

Here we ensure paths exist. It shows some examples of exception handling, and the Directory class in System.IO. The exception handling is not finished here.