C# ReadAllText File Doesn't Exist

Question

I am creating a very basic program to try out some File options, in this case I want to count how many words are in a text file I have created with the help of ReadAllText, however, the path name always shows an exception.

This is my code:

var path = @"‪‪C:\Users\pandrews\countme.docx";

            //Checks if file exists or not 
            if (File.Exists(path))
            {
                Console.WriteLine("File Exists");

                var content = File.ReadAllText(path);

                Console.WriteLine(content);

            } else {

                Console.WriteLine("File doesn't exist");

            }
            
            //Checks if directory exists, if it does it returns a list of files in the directory and shows on the console.

            if(Directory.Exists(@"C:\Users\pandrews"))
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Directory exists");

                var files = Directory.GetFiles(@"C:\Users\pandrews");

                foreach(var item in files)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(item);
                }

            } else 
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Directory doesn't Exist");
            }

As you can see, I check if the file exists yet visual studio says it doesn't, however, if I check if the directory exists, it says it does and if I check the list of files it lists the file I want to read.

C:\Users\pandrews\.gitconfig
C:\Users\pandrews\countme.docx
C:\Users\pandrews\NTUSER.DAT
C:\Users\pandrews\ntuser.dat.LOG1
C:\Users\pandrews\ntuser.dat.LOG2
C:\Users\pandrews\ntuser.ini

If I use a try catch, when trying to read all text it shows the following exception:

El nombre de archivo, el nombre de directorio o la sintaxis de la etiqueta del volumen no son correctos. : 'C:\Users\pandrews\source\repos\testingreadalltext\testingreadalltext\bin\Debug\netcoreapp3.1\??C:\Users\pandrews\countme.docx'

Translated: The name of the file, the name of the directory or the syntax of the volume label aren't correct.

I can't see any error in my code but hopefully someone else might be able to.

EDIT: I want to add I am signed in as an admin, the user admin is the owner of the file and i've executed Visual Studio as administrator.

Answer 1

Hans is correct in his comment.

The character is visible in your post when you inspect (with the browser tools) the HTML; there you see the special character:"202A"

Also, you might want to use the special environment folder constants instead of hard coding your path to your users folder: Eg

var path = Path.Combine(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.UserProfile), "countme.docx");