Managing and manipulating files isn't brain surgery. But with the file system as a major focus of any operating system, tools and methods for reading and updating files just seem to multiply like rabbits. The .NET Framework uses the Stream as its primary file interaction method, so this should help make things simpler. Of course, it piles dozens of wrapper classes on top of the basic stream, but that's another issue. As for the management of files and directories, .NET is going in the opposite direction, giving you more and more language and object features to perform the same basic tasks. Beyond the traditional Visual Basic and My namespace features introduced in this chapter, there are additional duplicate features in the .NET class libraries. Use the methods that meet your needs, and "file" the others away for future reference. |