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Rename Function

Visual Studio 2008

Renames a disk file or directory.

The My feature gives you greater productivity and performance in file I/O operations than Rename. For more information, see My.Computer.FileSystem Object.

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Public Sub Rename( _
   ByVal OldPath As String, _
   ByVal NewPath As String _
)

Parameters

OldPath: Required. String expression that specifies the existing file name and location. OldPath may include the directory, and drive, of the file.
NewPath: Required. String expression that specifies the new file name and location. NewPath may include directory and drive of the destination location. The file name specified by NewPath cannot already exist.

Exceptions

Exception type	Error number	Condition
ArgumentException	5	Path is invalid.
FileNotFoundException	53	OldPath file does not exist.
IOException	58	NewPath file already exists.
IOException	75	Access is invalid.
IOException	74	Cannot rename to different device.

See the "Error number" column if you are upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 applications that use unstructured error handling. (You can compare the error number against the Number Property (Err Object).) However, when possible, you should consider replacing such error control with Structured Exception Handling Overview for Visual Basic.

Remarks

The Rename function renames a file and moves it to a different directory, if necessary. The Rename function can move a file across drives, but it can only rename an existing directory when both NewPath and OldPath are located on the same drive. Rename cannot create a new file or directory.

Using the Rename function on an open file produces an error. You must close an open file before renaming it. Rename arguments cannot include multiple-character (*) and single-character (?) wildcards.

Security Note:
When using Rename to copy a file from an unprotected location to a protected location, the file retains the less restricted rights. Check to make sure you are not introducing a possible security risk.

Example

This example uses the Rename function to rename a file. For purposes of this example, assume that the directories that are specified already exist.

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Dim OldName, NewName As String
OldName = "OLDFILE"
' Define file names.
NewName = "NEWFILE"
' Rename file.
Rename(OldName, NewName)

OldName = "C:\OLDDIR\OLDFILE"
NewName = "C:\NEWDIR\NEWFILE"
' Move and rename file.
Rename(OldName, NewName)