Summary

The ability to handle common file I/O tasks is essential to all developers. The .NET Framework namespace, System.IO, exposes this functionality. By now, you should have a solid foothold in this namespace that will support you in your further explorations.

The following is a summary of some of the key points regarding common file I/O programming tasks:

• DirectoryInfo and FileInfo classes contain specific instance methods related to a given directory or file. Whereas, the Directory and File classes pertain to static methods and are thus used in more generic cases.

• Use the following four basic methods of the Directory class for manipulating directories: Create, CreateSubdirectory, Delete, MoveTo, and Refresh.

• Use the GetFiles method of Directory to access the files in a specific directory.

• Use the following methods of FileInfo to manipulate files: Create, Delete, MoveTo, Refresh, CopyTo, Open, OpenRead, and OpenWrite.

• The class, FileSystemWatcher, allows us to monitor the file system for new files, files being renamed, moved, and so on.

• Use the FileStream object for all basic file reading and writing including asynchronous and binary.

• To read files asynchronously, we call FileStream.BeginRead and pass the name of a procedure to receive callback notification when the operation is complete.

• StreamWriter, StreamReader, BinaryWriter, and BinaryReader all provide additional, more advanced file streaming functionality.

• ReadByte and WriteByte are the primary methods used for reading and writing binary data.