windows - Using / or \ for folder paths in C#

Question

When writing file paths in C#, I found that I can either write something like "C:" or "C:/" and get the same path. Which one is recommended? I heard somewhere that using a single / was more recommended than using (with as an escaped sequence).

Answer 1

Windows supports both path separators, so both will work, at least for local paths (/ won't work for network paths). The thing is that there is no actual benefit of using the working but non standard path separator (/) on Windows, especially because you can use the verbatim string literal:

string path = @"C:"  //Look ma, no escape

The only case where I could see a benefit of using the / separator is when you'll work with relative paths only and will use the code in Windows and Linux. Then you can have "../foo/bar/baz" point to the same directory. But even in this case is better to leave the System.IO namespace (Path.DirectorySeparatorChar, Path.Combine) to take care of such issues.