CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#pinvoke
Tester101
Tester101

Reputation: 8172

How can I get the information from the details tab of the file properties dialog in Windows?

If you right click a file in Windows explorer and select Properties, a dialog pops up with a ton of information. How can I access this information using C#?

Specifically, I'm looking for the information on the Details tab. I'm working mostly with images, so "Date taken" is important. I'll be working with other files as well, so it would be nice to have a way to get any metadata associated with the file.

I've seen places mention using Shell32.dll to get this information, but I get errors when I try to reference this library. Is there another way to do this, maybe through P/Invoke?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1693

Answers (3)

Justin
Justin

Reputation: 3397

After messing around a little, here is a VERY limited example of how to get the image meta data.

var image = System.Drawing.Image.FromFile(@"C:\your\image\here");

        foreach (var a in image.PropertyItems)
        {
            dynamic value;

            switch (a.Type)
                {
                case 2:
                    value = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(a.Value);
                    break;
                case 3:
                    value = BitConverter.ToInt16(a.Value, 0);
                    break;
                case 4:
                    value = BitConverter.ToInt32(a.Value, 0);
                    break;
                default:
                    value = "NaN";
                    break;
                }

            Console.WriteLine("Type: {0} \r\n Value: {1}", a.Type, value);
        }

You can find some more information on Microsoft's site and search on the Image Metadata specifications to fully write one yourself.

There is always the option of using a third-party library that already handles this, but I don't do much work in the area of images myself.

Upvotes: 1

Shaharyar
Shaharyar

Reputation: 12439

You can use File class methods for this purpose:

File.GetCreationTime(filename)
File.GetLastWriteTime(filename)
File.GetLastAccessTime(filename)
//and many more in the intellisense

Upvotes: 1

RandomUs1r
RandomUs1r

Reputation: 4190

Have you tried the FileSystemInfo class?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.filesysteminfo.aspx

Upvotes: 1

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