Closing a file after File.Create [duplicate]

Question

I check to see if a file exists with

if(!File.Exists(myPath)) {     File.Create(myPath); } 

However, when I go to create a StreamReader with this newly created file, I get an error saying that

The process cannot access the file '[my file path here]' because it is being used by another process.

There isn't a File.Close(myPath) that I can call so that it is closed after being created, so how do I free this resource so that I can open it later in my program?

Answer 1

File.Create(string) returns an instance of the FileStream class. You can call the Stream.Close() method on this object in order to close it and release resources that it's using:

var myFile = File.Create(myPath); myFile.Close(); 

However, since FileStream implements IDisposable, you can take advantage of the using statement (generally the preferred way of handling a situation like this). This will ensure that the stream is closed and disposed of properly when you're done with it:

using (var myFile = File.Create(myPath)) {    // interact with myFile here, it will be disposed automatically } 

Answer 2

The function returns a FileStream object. So you could use it's return value to open your StreamWriter or close it using the proper method of the object:

File.Create(myPath).Close();