How to double check if folder is empty`? - vb.net

Question

I can't find a solution for my problem. My Code is deleting empty folders and in general working fine, but there is one exception. It goes through every path one time, but if there was a Folder (A) that only has empty Folder (B) in it, then it would only delete Folder(B), since Folder (A) was not at empty at the time. How can I make it, so that it understands that Folder (A) is gonna be empty, once Folder (B) is deleted?
I thought DeleteEmptyFolder(folder.FullName) would solve the problem, but it is not working, since it doesn't repeat the same path it already went through. Removing directory.GetDirectories.Count = 0 doesn't work either, since it would delete any folder that doesn't have a file in it (even if there is another folder with files in it)
Private Sub DeleteEmptyFolder(ByVal sDirectoryPath As String)
If IO.Directory.Exists(sDirectoryPath) Then
Dim directory As New IO.DirectoryInfo(sDirectoryPath)
If directory.GetDirectories.Count = 0 AndAlso directory.GetFiles.Count = 0 Then
directory.Delete(True)
Return
End If
For Each folder As IO.DirectoryInfo In directory.GetDirectories()
DeleteEmptyFolder(folder.FullName)
Next
End If
End Sub
I am fairly new to VB.Net, so pardon if it is an obvious answer that I don't see.

Answer 1

Here's how the code ought to look:
Private Sub DeleteEmptyFolder(folderPath As String)
If Directory.Exists(folderPath) Then
For Each subFolderPath In Directory.EnumerateDirectories(folderPath)
DeleteEmptyFolder(subFolderPath)
Next
If Directory.EnumerateFiles(folderPath).Any() OrElse
Directory.EnumerateDirectories(folderPath).Any() Then
Return
End If
Directory.Delete(folderPath)
End If
End Sub
There's no point using DirectoryInfo if you need no other information about files and folders other than path. You should use EnumerateFiles and EnumerateDirectories over GetFiles and GetDirectories unless you specifically need to get an array of entries up front. In this case, you definitely don't. Let's say that you had a folder with 1000 files in it. This:
directory.GetFiles.Count = 0
would create an array containing an element for all 1000 files first, then check the number of elements in it. On the other hand, this:
Directory.EnumerateFiles(folderPath).Any()
would return True as soon as it encountered the first file, ignoring the other 999. You only care whether there's any files in the folder, not how many there are.

Answer 2

Please try this:
Private Sub deleteEmptyFolders(ByRef folder As String)
'Does exist such a path?
If IO.Directory.Exists(folder) Then 'yes
'Loop over all directories
For Each subFolder In IO.Directory.GetDirectories(folder)
'Delete all empty folders
deleteEmptyFolders(subFolder)
Next
'Delete folder if nothing remained in it
Try
My.Computer.FileSystem.DeleteDirectory(folder, FileIO.DeleteDirectoryOption.ThrowIfDirectoryNonEmpty)
Catch ex As Exception
End Try
End If
End Sub
I think this does what you want in a simple way.

Answer 3

I solved the problem by moving some of the code around.
Private Sub DeleteEmptyFolder(ByVal sDirectoryPath As String)
If IO.Directory.Exists(sDirectoryPath) Then
Dim directory As New IO.DirectoryInfo(sDirectoryPath)
For Each folder As IO.DirectoryInfo In directory.GetDirectories()
DeleteEmptyFolder(folder.FullName)
Next
If directory.GetDirectories.Count = 0 AndAlso directory.GetFiles.Count = 0 Then
directory.Delete(True)
Return
End If
End If
End If