Question

I’m having issues with a bit of code that I am writing in C#.

I am sending a document using the MailMessage and SMTP components. I copy the files that I wish to send to a temp directory such as c:\temp, loop through the documents and attach them to the email.

The email sends fine, however when I try to delete the files from the temp directory, I get the following error:

The process can not access the file because it is being used by another process

I can’t understand why this is happening. Below is the code that processes the documents

public void sendDocument(String email, string barcode, int requestid)
    {

        string tempDir = @"c:\temp";

        //first we get the document information from the database.
        Database db = new Database(dbServer, dbName, dbUser, dbPwd);

        List<Document> documents = db.getDocumentByID(barcode);
        int count = 0;
        foreach (Document doc in documents)
        {
            string tempPath = tempDir + "\\" + doc.getBarcode() + ".pdf";
            string sourcePath = doc.getMachineName() + "\\" + doc.getFilePath() + "\\" + doc.getFileName();

            //we now copy the file from the source location to the new target location
            try
            {
                //this copies the file to the folder
                File.Copy(sourcePath, tempPath, false);

            }
            catch (IOException ioe)
            {
                count++; 

                //the file has failed to copy so we add a number to the file to make it unique and try
                //to copy it again.
                tempPath = tempDir + "\\" + doc.getBarcode() + "-" + count + ".pdf";
                File.Copy(sourcePath, tempPath, false);

            }

            //we now need to update the filename in the to match the new location
            doc.setFileName(doc.getBarcode() + ".pdf");                

        }

        //we now email the document to the user.
        this.sendEmail(documents, email, null);

        updateSentDocuments(documents, email);

        //now we update the request table/
        db.updateRequestTable(requestid);


        //now we clean up the documents from the temp folder.
        foreach (Document doc in documents)
        {
            string path = @"c:\temp\" + doc.getFileName();
            File.Delete(path);
        }

    }

I would of thought that the this.sendEmail() method would of sent the email before returning to the sendDocument method, as I think it is the smtp object that is causing the deletes to fail.

This is the sendEmail method:

public void sendEmail(List<Document> documents, String email, string division)
    {
        String SMTPServer = null;
        String SMTPUser = null;
        String SMTPPwd = null;
        String sender = "";
        String emailMessage = "";

        //first we get all the app setting used to send the email to the users
        Database db = new Database(dbServer, dbName, dbUser, dbPwd);

        SMTPServer = db.getAppSetting("smtp_server");
        SMTPUser = db.getAppSetting("smtp_user");
        SMTPPwd = db.getAppSetting("smtp_password");
        sender = db.getAppSetting("sender");
        emailMessage = db.getAppSetting("bulkmail_message");

        DateTime date = DateTime.Now;

        MailMessage emailMsg = new MailMessage();

        emailMsg.To.Add(email);

        if (division == null)
        {
            emailMsg.Subject = "Document(s) Request - " + date.ToString("dd-MM-yyyy");
        }
        else
        {
            emailMsg.Subject = division + " Document Request - " + date.ToString("dd-MM-yyyy");
        }

        emailMsg.From = new MailAddress(sender);
        emailMsg.Body = emailMessage;

        bool hasAttachements = false;

        foreach (Document doc in documents)
        {

            String filepath = @"c:\temp\" + doc.getFileName();

            Attachment data = new Attachment(filepath);
            emailMsg.Attachments.Add(data);

            hasAttachements = true;


        }

        SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient(SMTPServer);

        //we try and send the email and throw an exception if it all goes tits.
        try
        {
            if (hasAttachements)
            {
                smtp.Send(emailMsg);
            }
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw new Exception("EmailFailure");
        }


    }

How to I get around this problem with a process hogging the file I wish to delete.

I can delete the file(s) once the application finishes.

Answer 1

You’re email message isn’t being Disposed, try disposing it after you’ve sent it:

 try
 {
      if (hasAttachements)
      {
          smtp.Send(emailMsg);         
      }
 }  
 catch ...
 finally
 {
      emailMsg.Dispose();
 }