What is the difference between Directory.EnumerateFiles vs Directory.GetFiles?

.net, c#, directory, io

Solution

From the docs:

The EnumerateFiles and GetFiles methods differ as follows: When you use EnumerateFiles, you can start enumerating the collection of names before the whole collection is returned; when you use GetFiles, you must wait for the whole array of names to be returned before you can access the array. Therefore, when you are working with many files and directories, EnumerateFiles can be more efficient.

So basically, `EnumerateFiles` returns an `IEnumerable` which can be lazily evaluated somewhat, whereas `GetFiles` returns a `string[]` which has to be fully populated before it can return.

Problem

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