create a file with C# content and save to a folder on the computer

Question

I need to create a report and save this report in a folder inside the C disk: from the computer, I’m only able to save the file without the contents and with the name blank.

The code to save:

string folder = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Relatorios"] + usuario;
string arquivo = folder + @"\" + nomearquivo;

if (!Directory.Exists(folder))
{
    Directory.CreateDirectory(arquivo + ".txt " + relatorio);
}

if (!File.Exists(arquivo))
{
    File.Create(arquivo+".txt " + relatorio);
}               
else
{
    File.Delete(arquivo);
    File.Create(arquivo + ".txt " + relatorio);
}

Answer 1

There are several problems there. I improved your code in a general.

1. Use Path.Combine() instead of concatenating the strings with the backslash (this is more of a hint).

2. No need to check if the directory exists before Directory.CreateDirectory() why this method only creates the file if it does not exist.

3. It is not necessary to delete the file to recreate it. The method File.Create() creates a file if it does not exist, if the file with this name already existed, it will be overwritten.

4. Beware of streams open.

   File.Create() will return a FileStream, this FileStream is not being closed and you need to be careful with this. That’s why I put Dispose() after the Create().

   Read about this at: What is the usefulness of using?, What types of resources are released in a "using statement"?, I should always use Dispose?

5. Failed to write the contents of the file. The method Create() receives only the file name, you are concatenating what should be the content along with the name.

   In my example, I used WriteAllLines() to write it. It takes as parameter a IEnumerable<string> and makes every element of this collection a file line. I used this method because it is much simpler and does not run the risk of resource leakage.

---

The code:

Supposing relatorio be a collection of string (array, list, etc.).

List<string> relatorio = /*Fazer algo para carregar o relatório*/;

string folder = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Relatorios"] + usuario;;
string arquivo = Path.Combine(folder, "arquivo.txt");
        
Directory.CreateDirectory(folder);

File.Create(arquivo).Dispose();

File.WriteAllLines(arquivo, relatorio);

Answer 2

https://msdn.microsoft.com/pt-br/library/system.io.file.createtext(v=vs.110). aspx

 string path = @"c:\temp\MyTest.txt";
    if (!File.Exists(path)) 
    {
        // Create a file to write to.
        using (StreamWriter sw = File.CreateText(path)) 
        {
            sw.WriteLine("Hello");
            sw.WriteLine("And");
            sw.WriteLine("Welcome");
        }   
    }