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

Here is an extension method for DirectoryInfo a la FileInfo.CopyTo (note the overwrite parameter):

public static DirectoryInfo CopyTo(this DirectoryInfo sourceDir, string destinationPath, bool overwrite = false)
{
    var sourcePath = sourceDir.FullName;

    var destination = new DirectoryInfo(destinationPath);

    destination.Create();

    foreach (var sourceSubDirPath in Directory.EnumerateDirectories(sourcePath, "*", SearchOption.AllDirectories))
        Directory.CreateDirectory(sourceSubDirPath.Replace(sourcePath, destinationPath));

    foreach (var file in Directory.EnumerateFiles(sourcePath, "*", SearchOption.AllDirectories))
        File.Copy(file, file.Replace(sourcePath, destinationPath), overwrite);

    return destination;
}

Answer 2

My solution is basically a modification of @Termininja's answer, however I have enhanced it a bit and it appears to be more than 5 times faster than the accepted answer.

public static void CopyEntireDirectory(string path, string newPath)
{
    Parallel.ForEach(Directory.GetFileSystemEntries(path, "*", SearchOption.AllDirectories)
    ,(fileName) =>
    {
        string output = Regex.Replace(fileName, "^" + Regex.Escape(path), newPath);
        if (File.Exists(fileName))
        {
            Directory.CreateDirectory(Path.GetDirectoryName(output));
            File.Copy(fileName, output, true);
        }
        else
            Directory.CreateDirectory(output);
    });
}

EDIT: Modifying @Ahmed Sabry to full parallel foreach does produce a better result, however the code uses recursive function and its not ideal in some situation.

public static void CopyEntireDirectory(DirectoryInfo source, DirectoryInfo target, bool overwiteFiles = true)
{
    if (!source.Exists) return;
    if (!target.Exists) target.Create();

    Parallel.ForEach(source.GetDirectories(), (sourceChildDirectory) =>
        CopyEntireDirectory(sourceChildDirectory, new DirectoryInfo(Path.Combine(target.FullName, sourceChildDirectory.Name))));

    Parallel.ForEach(source.GetFiles(), sourceFile =>
        sourceFile.CopyTo(Path.Combine(target.FullName, sourceFile.Name), overwiteFiles));
}

Answer 3

One variant with only one loop for copying of all folders and files:

foreach (var f in Directory.GetFileSystemEntries(path, "*", SearchOption.AllDirectories))
{
    var output = Regex.Replace(f, @"^" + path, newPath);
    if (File.Exists(f)) File.Copy(f, output, true);
    else Directory.CreateDirectory(output);
}

Answer 4

Or, if you want to go the hard way, add a reference to your project for Microsoft.VisualBasic and then use the following:

Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO.FileSystem.CopyDirectory(fromDirectory, toDirectory);

However, using one of the recursive functions is a better way to go since it won't have to load the VB dll.

Answer 5

Sorry for the previous code, it still had bugs :( (fell prey to the fastest gun problem) . Here it is tested and working. The key is the SearchOption.AllDirectories, which eliminates the need for explicit recursion.

string path = "C:\\a";
string[] dirs = Directory.GetDirectories(path, "*.*", SearchOption.AllDirectories);
string newpath = "C:\\x";
try
{
    Directory.CreateDirectory(newpath);
}
catch (IOException ex)
{
    Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
}
for (int j = 0; j < dirs.Length; j++)
{
    try
    {
        Directory.CreateDirectory(dirs[j].Replace(path, newpath));
    }
    catch (IOException ex)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
    }
}

string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(path, "*.*", SearchOption.AllDirectories);
for (int j = 0; j < files.Length; j++)            
{
    try
    {
        File.Copy(files[j], files[j].Replace(path, newpath));
    }
    catch (IOException ex)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
    }
}

Answer 6

tboswell 's replace Proof version (which is resilient to repeating pattern in filepath)

public static void copyAll(string SourcePath , string DestinationPath )
{
   //Now Create all of the directories
   foreach (string dirPath in Directory.GetDirectories(SourcePath, "*", SearchOption.AllDirectories))
      Directory.CreateDirectory(Path.Combine(DestinationPath ,dirPath.Remove(0, SourcePath.Length ))  );

   //Copy all the files & Replaces any files with the same name
   foreach (string newPath in Directory.GetFiles(SourcePath, "*.*",  SearchOption.AllDirectories))
      File.Copy(newPath, Path.Combine(DestinationPath , newPath.Remove(0, SourcePath.Length)) , true);
    }