How to remove illegal characters from path and filenames?

Question

I need a robust and simple way to remove illegal path and file characters from a simple string. I've used the below code but it doesn't seem to do anything, what am I missing?

using System; using System.IO;  namespace ConsoleApplication1 {     class Program     {         static void Main(string[] args)         {             string illegal = "\"M<>\"\\a/ry/ h**ad:>> a\\/:*?\"<>| li*tt|le|| la\"mb.?";              illegal = illegal.Trim(Path.GetInvalidFileNameChars());             illegal = illegal.Trim(Path.GetInvalidPathChars());              Console.WriteLine(illegal);             Console.ReadLine();         }     } } 

Answer 1

Try something like this instead;

string illegal = "\"M\"\\a/ry/ h**ad:>> a\\/:*?\"| li*tt|le|| la\"mb.?"; string invalid = new string(Path.GetInvalidFileNameChars()) + new string(Path.GetInvalidPathChars());  foreach (char c in invalid) {     illegal = illegal.Replace(c.ToString(), "");  } 

But I have to agree with the comments, I'd probably try to deal with the source of the illegal paths, rather than try to mangle an illegal path into a legitimate but probably unintended one.

Edit: Or a potentially 'better' solution, using Regex's.

string illegal = "\"M\"\\a/ry/ h**ad:>> a\\/:*?\"| li*tt|le|| la\"mb.?"; string regexSearch = new string(Path.GetInvalidFileNameChars()) + new string(Path.GetInvalidPathChars()); Regex r = new Regex(string.Format("[{0}]", Regex.Escape(regexSearch))); illegal = r.Replace(illegal, ""); 

Still, the question begs to be asked, why you're doing this in the first place.