Question

My program creates a log file when it starts. The user has the option through settings to “clear the log” which calls a method to delete the log file.

        //calls for a YesNo prompt to delete log or not
        result = objectMessageBox.ReturnDeleteLogPrompt();

        if (result == DialogResult.Yes)
        {
            //throw prompt
            if (File.Exists(objectLog.GetLogLocation()) == true)
            {
                try
                {                        
                    //delete the log file
                    File.Delete(objectLog.GetLogLocation());                        

                    //throw balloon tip saying log was cleared
                    ShowBalloonTip("LogCleared");
                }
                catch (Exception ee)
                {
                    MessageBox.Show("Error thrown deleting log: " + ee);
                    System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetText(ee.ToString());
                }
            }
        }

Because I have deleted the log file entirely I need to then recreate it. So I call a method that has this:

try
        {
            //we create a new log file so it seems that the log has just been cleared
            objectLog.CreateLog();
        }
        catch (Exception ee)
        {
            MessageBox.Show("Error occured while clearing log:\n" + ee);
        }

But when it attempts to recreate the log file it throws an error that says:

“System.IO.IOException: The process cannot access the file ‘~~’ because it is being used by another process.”

So it seems that during my call to delete the file it keeps accessing it? Do I need to dispose of something when I call the file.delete?

Answer 1

Instead of deleting and recreating the same file, can you just clear it out?

Something like this should work for you:

FileStream f = File.Open(@[filename], FileMode.Create);
f.Close();