SHFileOperation – All in one file management API

Tip  - It can do many things; Copy, move, rename, or delete file system object(s). 
Details  -

·         SHFileOperation can handle different file management operations; Copy, move, rename, or delete. 

·         It can do operations on multiple files in a single execution.

·         It can copy security attributes; CopyFile or CopyFileEx cannot copy the security attributes of the source to destination while file attributes can be copied.

·         It can display a progress dialog similar to the windows copy dialog, based on specific flags.

·         There is no direct progress call-back option. CopyFileEx allows specifying a call-back pointer which will get invoked periodically.

·         GetLastError() API cannot be used to detect the errors while executing SHFileOperation.

·         You can delete the file keeping it in recycle bin, by specifying the FOF_ALLOWUNDO flag.

·         File deletion can be made recursive.

·         Operations on multiple files use the double-null terminated format.

·         And so on; it suits most of the file operations generally carried out programmatically.

Reference         -  

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb762164(v=VS.85).aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb759795(v=VS.85).aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/10/08/9904646.aspx 

Posted By :Praveen E