How to delete a file after checking whether it exists

Question

This is pretty straightforward using the File class.

if(File.Exists(@"C:\test.txt"))
{
    File.Delete(@"C:\test.txt");
}

---

As Chris pointed out in the comments, you don't actually need to do the File.Exists check since File.Delete doesn't throw an exception if the file doesn't exist, although if you're using absolute paths you will need the check to make sure the entire file path is valid.

Use System.IO.File.Delete like so:

System.IO.File.Delete(@"C:\test.txt")

From the documentation:

If the file to be deleted does not exist, no exception is thrown.

You could import the System.IO namespace using:

using System.IO;

If the filepath represents the full path to the file, you can check its existence and delete it as follows:

if(File.Exists(filepath))
{
     try
    {
         File.Delete(filepath);
    } 
    catch(Exception ex)
    {
      //Do something
    } 
}  

if (System.IO.File.Exists(@"C:\test.txt"))
    System.IO.File.Delete(@"C:\test.txt"));

but

System.IO.File.Delete(@"C:\test.txt");

will do the same as long as the folder exists.

If you want to avoid a DirectoryNotFoundException you will need to ensure that the directory of the file does indeed exist. File.Exists accomplishes this. Another way would be to utilize the Path and Directory utility classes like so:

string file = @"C:\subfolder\test.txt";
if (Directory.Exists(Path.GetDirectoryName(file)))
{
    File.Delete(file);
}

  if (System.IO.File.Exists(@"C:\Users\Public\DeleteTest\test.txt"))
    {
        // Use a try block to catch IOExceptions, to 
        // handle the case of the file already being 
        // opened by another process. 
        try
        {
            System.IO.File.Delete(@"C:\Users\Public\DeleteTest\test.txt");
        }
        catch (System.IO.IOException e)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
            return;
        }
    }

if (File.Exists(path))
{
    File.Delete(path);
}