VB.Net - FileInfo.FullName - Am I missing something?

Shevek picture Shevek · Jan 27, 2011 · Viewed 7.9k times · Source

I have some some code which was written before I started here (sounds like a submission for The Daily WTF!) which loads an xml file for processing (the Throw line has been simplified to hide the identity of the culprit, otherwise its verbatim).

Try
    docData.Load(strPath)
Catch oError As Exception
    Throw New Exception("There is a load or parse error in the xml")
End Try

oFileInfo = New FileInfo(strPath)
strFileName = oFileInfo.FullName
oFileInfo = Nothing

strFileName is used once more in the method, passed to another method

strPath is used once more in the method, when deleting the file

From MSDN:

FullName: Gets the full path of the directory or file. (Inherited from FileSystemInfo.)

Surely then, that is simply returning what is already in strPath and can be replaced with a simple

strFileName = strPath

Or even do away with strFileName altogether and use strPath throughout.

Or am I missing something? Does FileInfo.FullName do anything else?

I did think it was a file exists check, but that has already been taken care of by the Try...Catch around the XmlDocument.Load and besides, File.Exists(strPath) would be much simpler.

Answer

Joe picture Joe · Jan 27, 2011

FileInfo.FullName will return the full path even if the input strPath is a relative path.