Question

I am trying to get all files from folder this way:

try
{
    string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(folderBrowserDialog1.SelectedPath, "*.*", SearchOption.AllDirectories);
}
catch (UnauthorizedAccessException)
{
    throw;
}

If my root folder contains a folder for which the user doesn’t have permission to access, the UnauthorizedAccessException is caught and my array is empty and all the recursion failed.

How can I handle this case and insure that my code ignore locations without permission but add the files from location with permissions?

Answer 1

see SafeFileEnumerator on this other post. I have used the SafeFileEnumerator code in the past with success. It prevents loosing the entire enumeration when you simply don’t have access to a single file so you are still able to iterate through the files that you can access.

EDIT: The version I have is slightly different from the one I linked to so let me share the version I have.

public static class SafeFileEnumerator
{
    public static IEnumerable<string> EnumerateDirectories(string parentDirectory, string searchPattern, SearchOption searchOpt)
    {
        try
        {
            var directories = Enumerable.Empty<string>();
            if (searchOpt == SearchOption.AllDirectories)
            {
                directories = Directory.EnumerateDirectories(parentDirectory)
                    .SelectMany(x => EnumerateDirectories(x, searchPattern, searchOpt));
            }
            return directories.Concat(Directory.EnumerateDirectories(parentDirectory, searchPattern));
        }
        catch (UnauthorizedAccessException ex)
        {
            return Enumerable.Empty<string>();
        }
    }

    public static IEnumerable<string> EnumerateFiles(string path, string searchPattern, SearchOption searchOpt)
    {
        try
        {
            var dirFiles = Enumerable.Empty<string>();
            if (searchOpt == SearchOption.AllDirectories)
            {
                dirFiles = Directory.EnumerateDirectories(path)
                                    .SelectMany(x => EnumerateFiles(x, searchPattern, searchOpt));
            }
            return dirFiles.Concat(Directory.EnumerateFiles(path, searchPattern));
        }
        catch (UnauthorizedAccessException ex)
        {
            return Enumerable.Empty<string>();
        }
    }
}

Example Usage:

foreach(string fileName in SafeFileEnumerator.EnumerateFiles(folderPath, "*" + extension, SearchOption.AllDirectories))
{
    //Do something with filename, store into an array or whatever you want to do.
}