Question

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How can I compare (directory) paths in C#?

I have a filename and a directory name and I want to determent if the file is in the directory. My first thought was to use string comparison and check that the filename string starts with the directory name string. However, that would fail in the case where the directory name was a UNC path and the filename was a mapped drive. Or if there were some other form of alias in one of the strings.

The string comparison just doesn’t seem like a reliable method. Is there a built in .NET function for determining if 2 ‘DirectoryInfo’ objects are pointing to the same folder?

Answer 1

You should use the Path class.

Something like the following would do the trick:

string.Compare(Path.GetDirectoryName(filePath), directoryPath.Trim('\\'), true)

If you wanted to handle relative paths then you can convert directoryPath and filePath into full paths first:

string.Compare(Path.GetDirectoryName(Path.GetFullPath(filePath)), GetFullPath(directoryPath).Trim('\\'), true)

EDIT: Edited to perform case invariant comparisons.