Question

I need to get my code to read if file doesnt exist create else append. Right now it is reading if it does exist create and append. Here is the code:

if (File.Exists(path))
{
    using (StreamWriter sw = File.CreateText(path))
    {

Would I do this?

if (! File.Exists(path))
{
    using (StreamWriter sw = File.CreateText(path))
    {

Edit:

string path = txtFilePath.Text;

if (!File.Exists(path))
{
    using (StreamWriter sw = File.CreateText(path))
    {
        foreach (var line in employeeList.Items)
        {
            sw.WriteLine(((Employee)line).FirstName);
            sw.WriteLine(((Employee)line).LastName);
            sw.WriteLine(((Employee)line).JobTitle);
        }
    }
}
else
{
    StreamWriter sw = File.AppendText(path);

    foreach (var line in employeeList.Items)
    {
        sw.WriteLine(((Employee)line).FirstName);
        sw.WriteLine(((Employee)line).LastName);
        sw.WriteLine(((Employee)line).JobTitle);
    }
    sw.Close();
}

}

Answer 1

You can simply call

using (StreamWriter w = File.AppendText("log.txt"))

It will create the file if it doesn’t exist and open the file for appending.

Edit:

This is sufficient:

string path = txtFilePath.Text;               
using(StreamWriter sw = File.AppendText(path))
{
  foreach (var line in employeeList.Items)                 
  {                    
    Employee e = (Employee)line; // unbox once
    sw.WriteLine(e.FirstName);                     
    sw.WriteLine(e.LastName);                     
    sw.WriteLine(e.JobTitle); 
  }                
}     

But if you insist on checking first, you can do something like this, but I don’t see the point.

string path = txtFilePath.Text;               


using (StreamWriter sw = (File.Exists(path)) ? File.AppendText(path) : File.CreateText(path))                 
{                      
    foreach (var line in employeeList.Items)                     
    {                         
      sw.WriteLine(((Employee)line).FirstName);                         
      sw.WriteLine(((Employee)line).LastName);                         
      sw.WriteLine(((Employee)line).JobTitle);                     
    }                  
} 

Also, one thing to point out with your code is that you’re doing a lot of unnecessary unboxing. If you have to use a plain (non-generic) collection like ArrayList, then unbox the object once and use the reference.

However, I perfer to use List<> for my collections:

public class EmployeeList : List<Employee>