FileInfo Class

The FileInfo class provides instance methods for the creation, copying, deletion, moving and opening of files, and aids in the creation of FileStream objects. The FileInfo class is a sealed class meaning you are unable to inherit from it.

Many of the FileInfo methods return other I/O types when you create or open files. You can use these other types to further manipulate a file.

If you are going to reuse an object several times, you should consider using the instance method of FileInfo instead of the corresponding static methods of the File class, because a security check will not always be necessary.

Common Members

• FileInfo (Initialises a new instance of the FileInfo class, which acts a wrapper for a file path).
• Attributes (Gets/Sets the FileAttributes of the current FileSystemInfo).
• CreationTime (Gets/Sets the creation time of the current FileSystemInfo object).
• Directory (Gets an instance of the parent directory).
• DirectoryName (Gets a string representing the directories full path).
• Exists (Gets a value indicating whether a file exists).
• Extension (Gets the string representing the extension part of the file).

Common Methods

• AppendText (Creates a StreamWriter that appends text to the file represented by this instance of the FileInfo).
• CopyTo (Copies an existing file to a new file).
• Create (Creates a file).
• CreateText (Creates a StreamWriter that writes a new text file).
• Decrypt (Decrypts a file that was encrypted by the current account using the Encrypt method).
• Delete (Permanently deletes a file).
• Encrypt (Encrypts a file so that only the account used to encrypt the file can decrypt it).
• MoveTo (Moves a specified file to a new location, providing the option to specify a new file name).
• Open (Opens a file with various read/write and sharing privileges).
• OpenRead (Create a read-only FileStream).
• OpenText (Creates a StreamReader with UTF8 encoding that reads from an existing text file).
• OpenWrite (Creates a write-only FileStream).
• Refresh (Refreshes the state of the object).
• Replace (Replaces the contents of a specified file with the file described by the current FileInfo object, deleting the original file, and creating a backup of the replaced file).