How to: Determine a Directory's Creation Time in Visual Basic

The My.Computer.FileSystem.GetDirectoryInfo Method returns a DirectoryInfo object that can be queried for information about the directory.

If the directory does not exist, an exception is not thrown until the first time a property on the DirectoryInfo object is accessed.

Note

  The options available in dialog boxes, and the names and locations of menu commands you see, might differ from what is described in Help, depending on your active settings or edition. This Help page was written with General Development Settings in mind. To change your settings, choose Import and Export Settings on the Tools menu. For more information, see Visual Studio Settings.

To determine a directory's creation time

  • Use the GetDirectoryInfo method to retrieve a DirectoryInfo object for the directory, and query the CreationTime property. This example displays CreationTime for C:\Documents and Settings.

    Dim getInfo As System.IO.DirectoryInfo
    getInfo = My.Computer.FileSystem.GetDirectoryInfo _
    ("C:\Documents and Settings")
    MsgBox("The directory was created at " & getInfo.CreationTime)
    

Robust Programming

The following conditions may cause an exception:

  • The path is not valid for one of the following reasons: it is a zero-length string; it contains only white space; it contains invalid characters; or it is a device path (starts with \\.\) (ArgumentException).

  • The path is not valid because it is Nothing (ArgumentNullException).

  • The path exceeds the system-defined maximum length (PathTooLongException).

  • A file or directory name in the path contains a colon (:) or is in an invalid format (NotSupportedException).

  • The user lacks the necessary permissions to view the path (SecurityException).

See Also

Tasks

How to: Determine if a Directory Exists in Visual Basic

Troubleshooting: Reading from and Writing to Text Files

Reference

My.Computer.FileSystem.GetDirectoryInfo Method

DirectoryInfo

CreationTime