Parameters

path

A string containing the name of the directory to search.

searchPattern

A string containing the text pattern for which to search. searchPattern cannot end with "..", or contain ".." followed by Path.DirectorySeparatorChar or Path.AltDirectorySeparatorChar .

Returns

A String array containing file and directory names matching the specified search criteria.

Permissions

Type	Reason
System.Security.Permissions.FileIOPermission	Requires permission to access path information for the specified directory. See System.Security.Permissions.FileIOPermissionAccess.PathDiscovery

Exceptions

Type	Reason
ArgumentNullException	searchPattern or path is null.
ArgumentException	path is a zero-length string, contains only white space, or contains one or more implementation-specific invalid characters. -or- searchPattern does not contain a valid pattern.
System.Security.SecurityException	The caller does not have the required permission.
System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException	path was not found.
System.IO.PathTooLongException	The length of path or the absolute path information for path exceeds the system-defined maximum length.
System.IO.IOException	path is a file name.
UnauthorizedAccessException	The caller does not have the required permission.

Remarks

The following wild card specifiers are permitted in searchPattern:

Wild card	Description
*	Zero or more characters.
?	Exactly one character.

The period (".") character, if immediately followed by a wild card specifier, indicates that the period or the empty string matches the pattern. For example, "foo.*" and "foo.?" match "foo". Note that "foo.*" and "foo*" behave identically. If the period is not immediately followed by a wildcard, it has no special meaning (it represents a period).

Characters other than the wild card specifiers represent themselves, for example, the searchPattern string "*t" searches for all names in path ending with the letter "t". The searchPattern string "s*" searches for all names in path beginning with the letter "s".

The names returned by this method are prefixed with the directory information provided in path. The path argument is permitted to specify relative or absolute path information. Relative path information is interpreted as relative to the current working directory.

Note: To obtain the current working directory, see Directory.GetCurrentDirectory.

Requirements

Namespace: System.IO
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)
Assembly Versions: 1.0.5000.0, 2.0.0.0