Delete items within a folder rather than deleing the entire folder itself using vb.net - vb.net

Question

I want to delete all the files contained in a folder. The below code does delete the file but also deletes the folder itself. I am aware you will need to perform a for loop to remove each item from the folder, but can't find the information on how to start the code for it. Can someone point me in the correct direction.
Dim folderFiles() As String
folderFiles= Directory.GetFileSystemEntries("C:\New Folder")
For Each element As String In files
If (Not Directory.Exists(folder)) Then
File.Delete(Path.Combine("C:\New Folder", Path.GetFileName(folder)))
End If
Next

Answer 1

This is the easier way :
For Each the_file As String In Directory.GetFileSystemEntries("C:\New folder")
File.Delete(the_file)
Next
Don't bother to grab the list of files and then browse it, use your loop directly on it.

Answer 2

I have a function for that. With it, you can also delete all files of a pattern even for all subdirectories:
Public Sub DeleteFiles(Path As String,
Optional Pattern As String = "*.*",
Optional All As Boolean = False)
Dim SO As IO.SearchOption = If(All, IO.SearchOption.AllDirectories, IO.SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly)
For Each Filename As String In Directory.GetFiles(Path, Pattern, SO)
File.Delete(Filename)
Next
End Sub
So you could use it for your task like:
DeleteFiles("C:\New Folder")

Answer 3

I would use this code
For Each file As String In IO.Directory.GetFiles("the path")
IO.File.Delete(file)
Next
This deletes everything in the folder but not the folder itself.

Answer 4

This is quick and easy, especially if 1) there's nothing special about the folder, eg permissions, and 2) the folder might contain sub-folders, sub-sub-folders, etc.
Simply delete the original folder and recreate it:
Dim path As String = {your path}
IO.Directory.Delete(path, recursive:=True)
IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(path)
Another option for folders with sub-folders where you wish to keep the (empty) sub-folders, is to use recursion:
Sub EmptyFolder(path As String) As Boolean
Try
For Each dir As String In IO.Directory.GetDirectories(path)
EmptyFolder(dir)
Next dir
For Each file As String In IO.Directory.GetFiles(path)
IO.File.Delete(file)
Next file
Catch
Throw
End Try
End Function