Using IO.Directory.GetFiles with a filename wildcard

I got an "Illegal characters in path" error on the following statement:
Dim TxtNames As String() = IO.Directory.GetFiles("c:\temp\*.txt")
and from the documentation it was not clear to me why I was getting the error.

Turns out that you must use the second overload version of the GetFiles method with two strings if you want to include a wildcard.

In the example above, the two possible correct versions of the GetFiles method include:

Dim TxtNames As String() = IO.Directory.GetFiles("c:\temp")
Dim TxtNames As String() = IO.Directory.GetFiles("c:\temp","*.txt")

The second statement provides the desired result of returning a string array of all filenames with a txt extension in the c:\temp folder. The first statement returns all files in the c:\temp folder which can be scanned with a loop for further processing.

Note that the single string overload verison of GetFiles can only accept a directory name.

I hope this helps clarify a point that managed to confuse me. As usual, it's obvious once you know the answer!

Joe Kunk