How does one extract each folder name from a path?

Question

string mypath = @"..\folder1\folder2\folder2";
string[] directories = mypath.Split(Path.DirectorySeparatorChar);

Edit: This returns each individual folder in the directories array. You can get the number of folders returned like this:

int folderCount = directories.Length;

This is good in the general case:

yourPath.Split(@"\/", StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)

There is no empty element in the returned array if the path itself ends in a (back)slash (e.g. "\foo\bar\"). However, you will have to be sure that yourPath is really a directory and not a file. You can find out what it is and compensate if it is a file like this:

if(Directory.Exists(yourPath)) {
  var entries = yourPath.Split(@"\/", StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
}
else if(File.Exists(yourPath)) {
  var entries = Path.GetDirectoryName(yourPath).Split(
                    @"\/", StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
}
else {
  // error handling
}

I believe this covers all bases without being too pedantic. It will return a string[] that you can iterate over with foreach to get each directory in turn.

If you want to use constants instead of the @"\/" magic string, you need to use

var separators = new char[] {
  Path.DirectorySeparatorChar,  
  Path.AltDirectorySeparatorChar  
};

and then use separators instead of @"\/" in the code above. Personally, I find this too verbose and would most likely not do it.

Realise this is an old post, but I came across it looking - in the end I decided apon the below function as it sorted what I was doing at the time better than any of the above:

private static List<DirectoryInfo> SplitDirectory(DirectoryInfo parent)
{
    if (parent == null) return null;
    var rtn = new List<DirectoryInfo>();
    var di = parent;

    while (di.Name != di.Root.Name)
    {
    rtn.Add(di);
    di = di.Parent;
    }
    rtn.Add(di.Root);

    rtn.Reverse();
    return rtn;
}

I see your method Wolf5370 and raise you.

internal static List<DirectoryInfo> Split(this DirectoryInfo path)
{
    if(path == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("path");
    var ret = new List<DirectoryInfo>();
    if (path.Parent != null) ret.AddRange(Split(path.Parent));
    ret.Add(path);
    return ret;
}

On the path c:\folder1\folder2\folder3 this returns

c:\

c:\folder1

c:\folder1\folder2

c:\folder1\folder2\folder3

In that order

OR

internal static List<string> Split(this DirectoryInfo path)
{
    if(path == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("path");
    var ret = new List<string>();
    if (path.Parent != null) ret.AddRange(Split(path.Parent));
    ret.Add(path.Name);
    return ret;
}

will return

c:\

folder1

folder2

folder3

There are a few ways that a file path can be represented. You should use the System.IO.Path class to get the separators for the OS, since it can vary between UNIX and Windows. Also, most (or all if I'm not mistaken) .NET libraries accept either a '\' or a '/' as a path separator, regardless of OS. For this reason, I'd use the Path class to split your paths. Try something like the following:

string originalPath = "\\server\\folderName1\\another\ name\\something\\another folder\\";
string[] filesArray = originalPath.Split(Path.AltDirectorySeparatorChar,
                              Path.DirectorySeparatorChar);

This should work regardless of the number of folders or the names.

public static IEnumerable<string> Split(this DirectoryInfo path)
{
    if (path == null) 
        throw new ArgumentNullException("path");
    if (path.Parent != null)
        foreach(var d in Split(path.Parent))
            yield return d;
    yield return path.Name;
}