error : The given path's format is not supported

Question

Getting this error The given path's format is not supported. at this line

System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(visit_Path);

Where I am doing mistake in below code

void Create_VisitDateFolder()
        {
            this.pid = Convert.ToInt32(db.GetPatientID(cmbPatientName.SelectedItem.ToString()));
            String strpath = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);
            String path = strpath + "\\Patients\\Patient_" + pid + "\\";
            string visitdate = db.GetPatient_visitDate(pid);
            this.visitNo = db.GetPatientID_visitNo(pid);
            string visit_Path = path +"visit_" + visitNo + "_" + visitdate+"\\";
            bool IsVisitExist = System.IO.Directory.Exists(path);
            bool IsVisitPath=System.IO.Directory.Exists(visit_Path);
            if (!IsVisitExist)
            {
                System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(path);
            }
            if (!IsVisitPath)
            {
                System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(visit_Path);\\error here
            }
        }

getting this value for visit_Path

C:\Users\Monika\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\SonoRepo\SonoRepo\bin\Debug\Patients\Patient_16\visit_4_16-10-2013 00:00:00\

Answer 1

You can not have : in directory name, I suggest you to use this to string to get date in directory name:

DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd hh_mm_ss");

it will create timestamp like:

2013-10-17 05_41_05

additional note:

use Path.Combine to make full path, like:

var path = Path.Combine(strpath , "Patients", "Patient_" + pid);

and last

string suffix = "visit_"+visitNo+"_" + visitdate;
var visit_Path = Path.Combine(path, suffix);

Answer 2

In general always use Path.Combine to create paths:

String strPath = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);
String path = Path.Combine(strPath,"Patients","Patient_" + pid);
string visitdate = db.GetPatient_visitDate(pid);
this.visitNo = db.GetPatientID_visitNo(pid);
string fileName = string.Format("visit_{0}_{1}", visitNo, visitdate);
string visit_Path = Path.Combine(path, fileName);
bool IsVisitExist = System.IO.Directory.Exists(path);
bool IsVisitPath=System.IO.Directory.Exists(visit_Path);

To replace invalid characters from a filename you could use this loop:

string invalidChars = new string(Path.GetInvalidFileNameChars()) + new string(Path.GetInvalidPathChars());
foreach (char c in invalidChars)
{
    visit_Path = visit_Path.Replace(c.ToString(), ""); // or with "."
}

Answer 3

你不能有冒号:在文件路径中

Answer 4

You can't use colons ( : ) in a path. You can for example Replace() them with dots ( . ).

Answer 5

Just wanted to add my two cents. I assigned the path from a text box to string and also adding additional strings, but I forgot to add the .Text to the text box variable.

So instead of

strFinalPath = TextBox1.Text + strIntermediatePath + strFilename

I wrote

strFinalPath = TextBox1 + strIntermediatePath + strFilename

So the path became invalid because it contained invalid characters. I was surprised that c# instead of rejecting the assignment because of type mismatch, assigned invalid value to the final string. So look at the path assignment string closely.