C#: Cant access file after creating

Question

i'm trying to create a json file if it doesn't exist, and then write all lines to it. The creation of the file works, but the problem i have is that File.WriteAllLines says "the process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process".

Here's my code:

public void generateFolderFiles(string folderToSearch, string fileToEdit) {
        string[] filesToSearch = Directory.GetFiles(folderToSearch);
        string completeJson = "";
        for(int i=0;i<filesToSearch.Length;i++) {
            try {
                File.Delete(fileToEdit);
                File.Create(fileToEdit);
            } catch(Exception e){}
            string[] fsLines = File.ReadAllLines(filesToSearch[i]);
            string fsText = string.Join("", fsLines);
            fsText=fsText.Replace("[", "").Replace("]", "");
            completeJson+=fsText;
        }
        completeJson="["+completeJson+"]";
        string[] lnes = new string[1]{completeJson};
        File.WriteAllLines(fileToEdit, lnes);
    }

Refer http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26741191/ioexception-the-process-cannot-access-the-file-file-path-because-it-is-being — sowjanya attaluri, Jul 28 '16 at 07:29
`for` loop seems a little weird to me; let's say you have 10 files in `folderToSearch`; then you delete and create the same `fileToEdit` file 10 times as that string does not change in the code you provided. — mcy, Jul 28 '16 at 07:30

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 28 '16 at 07:30

File.Create() returns a FileStream which you can use to do the file IO. While FileStream is open (and in your case it remains open for who knows how long because you do not call neither Close(), nor Dispose() on it), it does not not allow anybody else to access it (in reality, things are a bit more complex), which is why your WriteAllLines() call fails.

C#: Cant access file after creating

1 Answers1