FileStream and StreamWriter - How to truncate the remainder of the file after writing?

Nathan Ridley picture Nathan Ridley · Dec 11, 2011 · Viewed 8.9k times · Source
var fs = new FileStream(filePath, FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.ReadWrite);
using(var writer = new StreamWriter(fs))
    writer.Write(....);

If the file previously contained text and the newly-written text is shorter than what was already in the file, how do I make sure that the obsolete trailing content in the file is truncated?

Note that opening the file in truncate mode isn't an option in this case. The file is already open when I receive the FileStream object. The above code is just to illustrate the stream's properties.

EDIT

Expanding on the answer below, the solution is:

var fs = new FileStream(filePath, FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.ReadWrite);
using(var writer = new StreamWriter(fs))
{
    writer.Write(....);
    writer.Flush();
    fs.SetLength(fs.Position);
}

Answer

Oded picture Oded · Dec 11, 2011

Use SetLength to set the new length of the file - the file should get truncated.

See this answer to a related question.