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System.IO.IOException: file used by another process

Asked 2009-06-22T03:51:41.083
27

I've been working on this small piece of code that seems trivial but still, i cannot really see where is the problem. My functions do a pretty simple thing. Opens a file, copy its contents, replace a string inside and copy it back to the original file (a simple search and replace inside a text file then). I didn't really know how to do that as I'm adding lines to the original file, so I just create a copy of the file, (file.temp) copy also a backup (file.temp) then delete the original file(file) and copy the file.temp to file. I get an exception while doing the delete of the file. Here is the sample code:

private static bool modifyFile(FileInfo file, string extractedMethod, string modifiedMethod)
    {
        Boolean result = false;
        FileStream fs = new FileStream(file.FullName + ".tmp", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write);
        StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(fs);

        StreamReader streamreader = file.OpenText();
        String originalPath = file.FullName;
        string input = streamreader.ReadToEnd();
        Console.WriteLine("input : {0}", input);

        String tempString = input.Replace(extractedMethod, modifiedMethod);
        Console.WriteLine("replaced String {0}", tempString);

        try
        {
            sw.Write(tempString);
            sw.Flush();
            sw.Close();
            sw.Dispose();
            fs.Close();
            fs.Dispose();
            streamreader.Close();
            streamreader.Dispose();

            File.Copy(originalPath, originalPath + ".old", true);
            FileInfo newFile = new FileInfo(originalPath + ".tmp");
            File.Delete(originalPath);
            File.Copy(fs., originalPath, true);

            result = true;
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(ex);
        }

        return result;
    }`

And the related exception

System.IO.IOException: The process cannot access the file 'E:\mypath
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1 Answer

4

It worked for me.

Here is my test code. Test run follows:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            FileInfo f = new FileInfo(args[0]);
            bool result = modifyFile(f, args[1],args[2]);
        }
        private static bool modifyFile(FileInfo file, string extractedMethod, string modifiedMethod) 
        { 
            Boolean result = false; 
            FileStream fs = new FileStream(file.FullName + ".tmp", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write); 
            StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(fs); 
            StreamReader streamreader = file.OpenText(); 
            String originalPath = file.FullName; 
            string input = streamreader.ReadToEnd(); 
            Console.WriteLine("input : {0}", input); 
            String tempString = input.Replace(extractedMethod, modifiedMethod); 
            Console.WriteLine("replaced String {0}", tempString); 
            try 
            { 
                sw.Write(tempString); 
                sw.Flush(); 
                sw.Close(); 
                sw.Dispose(); 
                fs.Close(); 
                fs.Dispose(); 
                streamreader.Close(); 
                streamreader.Dispose(); 
                File.Copy(originalPath, originalPath + ".old", true); 
                FileInfo newFile = new FileInfo(originalPath + ".tmp"); 
                File.Delete(originalPath); 
                File.Copy(originalPath + ".tmp", originalPath, true); 
                result = true; 
            } 
            catch (Exception ex) 
            { 
                Console.WriteLine(ex); 
            } 
            return result; 
        }
    }
}


C:\testarea>ConsoleApplication1.exe file.txt padding testing
input :         <style type="text/css">
        <!--
         #mytable {
          bor
answered 2009-06-22T04:10:07.377

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