Q:

How to get only filenames within a directory using c#?

When I use the line of code as below , I get an string array containing the entire path of the individual files . 
private string[] pdfFiles = Directory.GetFiles("C:\\Documents", "*.pdf");

I would like to know if there is a way to only retrieve the file names in the strings rather than the entire paths.

A:

You can use Path.GetFileName to get the filename from the full path
private string[] pdfFiles = Directory.GetFiles("C:\\Documents", "*.pdf")
                                     .Select(Path.GetFileName)
                                     .ToArray();

EDIT: the solution above uses LINQ, so it requires .NET 3.5 at least. Here's a solution that works on earlier versions:
private string[] pdfFiles = GetFileNames("C:\\Documents", "*.pdf");

private static string[] GetFileNames(string path, string filter)
{
    string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(path, filter);
    for(int i = 0; i < files.Length; i++)
        files[i] = Path.GetFileName(files[i]);
    return files;
}

A:

You can use the method Path.GetFileName(yourFileName); (MSDN) to just get the name of the file.

A:

You could use the DirectoryInfo and FileInfo classes.
//GetFiles on DirectoryInfo returns a FileInfo object.
var pdfFiles = new DirectoryInfo("C:\\Documents").GetFiles("*.pdf");

//FileInfo has a Name property that only contains the filename part.
var firstPdfFilename = pdfFiles[0].Name;

