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MrBlonde
MrBlonde

Reputation: 45

Find a File's Directory with an unknown directory in .NET

Is there a way to find a file's directory without knowing the directory? For example, I have calc.exe somewhere on my computer. Is there a way to find that it's installed on C:\windows\system32?

Ideally, i'd like to be able to find other executables that are installed elsewhere, I'm just curious how to search for a file name and extension, returning the full path.

I am hoping to do this in .NET by the way.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 269

Answers (1)

Steven Liekens
Steven Liekens

Reputation: 14133

Simply searching all directories is fairly easy. The problem is that hard disks (and to a lesser extent, solid state disks) are still the slowest component in modern computers.

The best place to start is offering to let the user specify a directory that should be searched. It's as effective as it is simple. There is a huge difference between scanning all of C:\, or just the contents of C:\Windows.

Then, you'll have to decide how you want to scan sub-directories. Do you want to search horizontally or vertically? In other words: when you hit a sub-directory in your search, should you immediately start scanning the contents of that directory, or should you finish scanning the current directory first? If the current directory has both a sibling and a sub-directory, which one do you want to scan first?

Finally, you'll have to decide how many levels deep you should scan. If the file hasn't been found in the 10th sub-directory, is it still worth looking through the 11th or 12th?

For actual code examples: click

Upvotes: 2

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