Hiding files with attribute hidden, system or temporary from file listing

On our sites we use pretty much the same file listing functions that comes with the example site in EPiServer. It’s simple and have worked well for many years, but recently one of our users realized that hidden files were visible in the listing. My first thought was that it should be the easiest thing ever to hide these files, surely the FileSystemDataSource would have a nice property called “ShowHiddenFiles” or something, ready use. It turned out i couldn’t be more wrong!

so what to do? After testing and thinking of several ways to solve my issue, I ended up with a quite simple solution where I used TreeNodeDataBound to determine if the current node should be rendered or not. In the sample unit this method is used to add different functionality for files and directories. Just add a few more lines of code to it like below:

protected void FileTree_TreeNodeDataBound(object sender, System.Web.UI.WebControls.TreeNodeEventArgs e)
        {
            VirtualFileBase virtualFile = e.Node.DataItem as VirtualFileBase;
           
            if (virtualFile.IsDirectory)
            {
                e.Node.SelectAction = TreeNodeSelectAction.Expand;
            }
            else
            {
                try
                {
                    VersioningFile RealFile = VirtualPathHandler.Instance.GetFile(virtualFile.VirtualPath, true) as VersioningFile;
                    string RealPath = RealFile.LocalPath;
                    FileInfo RealFileInfo = new FileInfo(RealPath);

                    if (RealFileInfo.Exists)
                    {
                        bool IsHidden = (RealFileInfo.Attributes & FileAttributes.Hidden) == FileAttributes.Hidden;
                        bool IsSystem = (RealFileInfo.Attributes & FileAttributes.System) == FileAttributes.System;
                        bool IsTemporary = (RealFileInfo.Attributes & FileAttributes.Temporary) == FileAttributes.Temporary;

                        if (IsHidden || IsSystem || IsTemporary)
                            FileTree.Nodes.Remove(e.Node);
                    }
                }
                catch { }

                e.Node.NavigateUrl = e.Node.DataPath;
            }
        }

Now it’s safe to list files from folders where hidden, system or temporary files are sored!