Deleting files in use
c#
Solution
Description
There is no way to delete a file that is currently in use by another process. But you can wait till the file is not locked.
Check in a while loop till the file is unlocked with this method
protected virtual bool IsFileLocked(FileInfo file)
{
FileStream stream = null;
try
{
stream = file.Open(FileMode.Open, FileAccess.ReadWrite, FileShare.None);
}
catch (IOException)
{
//the file is unavailable because it is:
//still being written to
//or being processed by another thread
//or does not exist (has already been processed)
return true;
}
finally
{
if (stream != null)
stream.Close();
}
//file is not locked
return false;
}
Sample
FileInfo file = new FileInfo("PathToTheFile");
while (IsFileLocked(file))
Thread.Sleep(1000);
file.Delete();
Update
If you want to skip locked files you can do this.
//
var dir = new DirectoryInfo(folderPath);
foreach(var file in dir.GetFiles()) {
try
{
file.Delete();
}
catch (IOException)
{
//file is currently locked
}
}
Problem
I created a simple program to delete temporary files in C# (for fun, not a major project) and am running into locked files (in use) issues. How do you normally either exclude those files? For reference I am receiving the error: The process cannot access the file 'ExchangePerflog_8484fa31c65c7a31cfcccd43.dat' because it is being used by another process. Code: ``` static void Main(string[] args) { string folderPath = string.Empty; folderPath = System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("temp"); deleteFilesInDirectory(folderPath); } public static void deleteFilesInDirectory(string folderPath) { try { var dir = new DirectoryInfo(folderPath); dir.Attributes = dir.Attributes & ~FileAttributes.ReadOnly; dir.Delete(true); MessageBox.Show(folderPath + " has been cleaned."); } catch (System.IO.IOException ex) { MessageBox.Show(ex.Message); return; } } ```