Hi Gregory,

>>Hi All,
>>
>>I have a method that returns a string if there is no file in a directory. I have stepped through this and watched this line get set to an empty string but when it comes back to the calling line of code, it is null. I am missing something and wonder if it is the way I did the while statement. Any ideas appreciated.
>>Thanks for the help
>>Tim
>>
>>When the return from PopQueue is set to "" then in my while statement the value of fileName is null. Why would this be?
>>

>>while ((fileName = this.PopQueue(path, filter)) != "" && llSuccess)
>>{
>>    // Do all my stuff here, process each file returned until no more files are returned.
>>}
>>}
>>

>
>hi Tim,
>
>There's nothing wrong with the while statement. It's just that the debugger upon returning from PopQueue() still shows the old (null) value
>My guess is that the assignment hasn't executed yet, so filename is still null
>
>

>class test
>{
>	static void Main(string[] args)
>	{
>		string fileName;
>		bool success = true;
>
>		while ((fileName = PopQueue()) != "" && success) // here it's still null in the debugger - after execution of PopQueue()
>		{
>		} 
>		// here it is ""
>		Console.ReadLine();
>	}
>	static string PopQueue()
>	{
>		return "";
>	}
>
>
>}
>

I suspect I was jumping to a conclusion too soon as your comments make sense. I had a breakpoint on the While line and after the break each time i was Stepping Into the PopQueue() method. Whatching the directory I see no more files and PopQueue returns an empty string. After coming back to the while loop I was expecting the fileName to be "" but it was still null. Thus I still have the problem I was trying to figure out. Why do I have an endless loop in this while statement. If the PopQueue method returns an empty string I needed it to exit the loop. I had originally thought it was working, but then discovered the breakpoint continues to hit over and over regardless of the empty string. Any ideas?
Thanks, I think I learned something from you today and I am going to do some experiments to make sure I got it.
Tim