What is the difference between Directory.EnumerateFiles vs Directory.GetFiles?

c# .net directory io
DarthVader picture DarthVader · Apr 14, 2011 · Viewed 49.7k times · Source

What is the difference between Directory.EnumerateFiles vs GetFiles?

Obviously one returns an array and the other return Enumerable.

Anything else?

Answer

Daniel DiPaolo picture Daniel DiPaolo · Apr 14, 2011

From the docs:

The EnumerateFiles and GetFiles methods differ as follows: When you use EnumerateFiles, you can start enumerating the collection of names before the whole collection is returned; when you use GetFiles, you must wait for the whole array of names to be returned before you can access the array. Therefore, when you are working with many files and directories, EnumerateFiles can be more efficient.

So basically, EnumerateFiles returns an IEnumerable which can be lazily evaluated somewhat, whereas GetFiles returns a string[] which has to be fully populated before it can return.

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