Copy the entire contents of a directory in C#

Question

I want to copy the entire contents of a directory from one location to another in C#.

There doesn't appear to be a way to do this using System.IO classes without lots of recursion.

There is a method in VB that we can use if we add a reference to Microsoft.VisualBasic:

new Microsoft.VisualBasic.Devices.Computer().
    FileSystem.CopyDirectory( sourceFolder, outputFolder );

This seems like a rather ugly hack. Is there a better way?

Answer 1

This is my code hope this help

    private void KCOPY(string source, string destination)
    {
        if (IsFile(source))
        {
            string target = Path.Combine(destination, Path.GetFileName(source));
            File.Copy(source, target, true);
        }
        else
        {
            string fileName = Path.GetFileName(source);
            string target = System.IO.Path.Combine(destination, fileName);
            if (!System.IO.Directory.Exists(target))
            {
                System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(target);
            }

            List<string> files = GetAllFileAndFolder(source);

            foreach (string file in files)
            {
                KCOPY(file, target);
            }
        }
    }

    private List<string> GetAllFileAndFolder(string path)
    {
        List<string> allFile = new List<string>();
        foreach (string dir in Directory.GetDirectories(path))
        {
            allFile.Add(dir);
        }
        foreach (string file in Directory.GetFiles(path))
        {
            allFile.Add(file);
        }

        return allFile;
    }
    private bool IsFile(string path)
    {
        if ((File.GetAttributes(path) & FileAttributes.Directory) == FileAttributes.Directory)
        {
            return false;
        }
        return true;
    }

Answer 2

You can always use this, taken from Microsofts website.

static void Main()
{
    // Copy from the current directory, include subdirectories.
    DirectoryCopy(".", @".\temp", true);
}

private static void DirectoryCopy(string sourceDirName, string destDirName, bool copySubDirs)
{
    // Get the subdirectories for the specified directory.
    DirectoryInfo dir = new DirectoryInfo(sourceDirName);

    if (!dir.Exists)
    {
        throw new DirectoryNotFoundException(
            "Source directory does not exist or could not be found: "
            + sourceDirName);
    }

    DirectoryInfo[] dirs = dir.GetDirectories();
    // If the destination directory doesn't exist, create it.
    if (!Directory.Exists(destDirName))
    {
        Directory.CreateDirectory(destDirName);
    }

    // Get the files in the directory and copy them to the new location.
    FileInfo[] files = dir.GetFiles();
    foreach (FileInfo file in files)
    {
        string temppath = Path.Combine(destDirName, file.Name);
        file.CopyTo(temppath, false);
    }

    // If copying subdirectories, copy them and their contents to new location.
    if (copySubDirs)
    {
        foreach (DirectoryInfo subdir in dirs)
        {
            string temppath = Path.Combine(destDirName, subdir.Name);
            DirectoryCopy(subdir.FullName, temppath, copySubDirs);
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

Try this:

Process proc = new Process();
proc.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = true;
proc.StartInfo.FileName = Path.Combine(Environment.SystemDirectory, "xcopy.exe");
proc.StartInfo.Arguments = @"C:\source C:\destination /E /I";
proc.Start();

Your xcopy arguments may vary but you get the idea.

Answer 4

Copy folder recursively without recursion to avoid stack overflow.

public static void CopyDirectory(string source, string target)
{
    var stack = new Stack<Folders>();
    stack.Push(new Folders(source, target));

    while (stack.Count > 0)
    {
        var folders = stack.Pop();
        Directory.CreateDirectory(folders.Target);
        foreach (var file in Directory.GetFiles(folders.Source, "*.*"))
        {
            File.Copy(file, Path.Combine(folders.Target, Path.GetFileName(file)));
        }

        foreach (var folder in Directory.GetDirectories(folders.Source))
        {
            stack.Push(new Folders(folder, Path.Combine(folders.Target, Path.GetFileName(folder))));
        }
    }
}

public class Folders
{
    public string Source { get; private set; }
    public string Target { get; private set; }

    public Folders(string source, string target)
    {
        Source = source;
        Target = target;
    }
}

Answer 5

A minor improvement on d4nt's answer, as you probably want to check for errors and not have to change xcopy paths if you're working on a server and development machine:

public void CopyFolder(string source, string destination)
{
    string xcopyPath = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("WINDIR") + @"\System32\xcopy.exe";
    ProcessStartInfo info = new ProcessStartInfo(xcopyPath);
    info.UseShellExecute = false;
    info.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
    info.Arguments = string.Format("\"{0}\" \"{1}\" /E /I", source, destination);

    Process process = Process.Start(info);
    process.WaitForExit();
    string result = process.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();

    if (process.ExitCode != 0)
    {
        // Or your own custom exception, or just return false if you prefer.
        throw new InvalidOperationException(string.Format("Failed to copy {0} to {1}: {2}", source, destination, result));
    }
}

Answer 6

If you like Konrad's popular answer, but you want the source itself to be a folder under target, rather than putting it's children under the target folder, here's the code for that. It returns the newly created DirectoryInfo, which is handy:

public static DirectoryInfo CopyFilesRecursively(DirectoryInfo source, DirectoryInfo target)
{
  var newDirectoryInfo = target.CreateSubdirectory(source.Name);
  foreach (var fileInfo in source.GetFiles())
    fileInfo.CopyTo(Path.Combine(newDirectoryInfo.FullName, fileInfo.Name));

  foreach (var childDirectoryInfo in source.GetDirectories())
    CopyFilesRecursively(childDirectoryInfo, newDirectoryInfo);

  return newDirectoryInfo;
}