I have to open a process.exe from a button_click event by known only the filename and the .exe extension.
Is It possible? In two words i need to make a game.exe library ,and if the filename.exe will be found the process filename.exe,
need to be started.
I want to avoid to ask the costumer the full path of the program location, and i dont want to use OpenFileDialog()for browse. Im three days stuck here. So
filename.exe=textbox1.text
SystemDiagnostic.Process(..).Start(filename.exe)
this will open only the file if the file and the debug program are in the same directory.
Do i need a recursive search, and if the file is found open the process?How do i search for the filename.exe in all the #"C:\?
Thank everyone Sorry for bad english.
If that file is deployed by you, like it is up to you to make an installer for it, you can add the containing directory of that file to the PATH environment variable, then you can simply launch it by
Process.Start(“filename.exe”)
Without having to specify the full path to that file.
If it is out of your control, but there is some trace about the location of that file, for example, if it is from a known vendor and the file has a default location or there is something like “InstallLocation” in registry for that file, you can query registry to get the full path then launch it.
Your last resort will be scanning the whole disk for that file. But this is too bad, unreliable and slow...and things can go wrong easily. I strongly warn you against this approach.
If you have to choose the last approach, you might find this post useful. Remember to check other attributes like version number, publisher, etc., in case you end up calling a wrong file happens to have that name.
Related
I need to track the location of some files that i know the initial full paths. Situtation as follows :
I have a file in path C:\Temp\first.txt
in some time this first.txt file changes location to for example C:\Temptwo folder
i need to learn this second location automatically when the location change happens is there way to do it in C# thanks.
It depends on where the files are moving from and to. If you are moving from C:\\MyProgram\TempA\Temp.txt to C:\\MyProgram\TempB\Temp.txt, then you can just use the directory tools. Directory.GetFiles will scan a directory for you and return an array of strings containing the names of those files. If you know the name of the file you are looking for, or you are using a unique file extension, then you can search through the files you find until you identify the file you are looking for. You can also call Directory.GetDirectories recursively to look through sub-directories if you have a lot of folders this file could be hiding in.
While this might technically work on the C drive, I would suggest carefully considering your use case before trying to re-invent Windows Search.
I'm creating a program that controls if words in a textbox are present in a text file.
The question is: Is there a way to find the path of that file without depending on the computer you're on?
If you don't use an absolute value for the path - it'll always try to resolve it relative to where your application is.
So if you put the file in the same folder as your application, it'll find it.
Otherwise, if you want your user to locate the file for you, you could use an OpenFileDialogExample here
Another option is to use one of the 'known' paths (such as My Documents). You can do this using Environment.GetFolder
But all of these depend on what you're trying to do exactly.
You can use relative paths. For example, if your path is "file.txt" and save the file, it will be saved next to your exe. Same thing for opening.
I am trying to make a custom launcher for Minecraft in C# but I have come across a bump.
I want to add something into it, Minecraft Forge, but the only way I could think of is to change the extension of minecraft.jar to minecraft.zip, extract the contents of the Minecraft Forge.zip and the minecraft.zip into the same folder and then zip that entire folder up into minecraft.jar.
However minecraft.jar has a file named aux.class so whenever my extract script (Made in java) tries to extract it, it simply says:
Unable to find file G:\Programming\C#\Console\Forge Installer\Forge Installer\bin\Debug\Merge\aux.class.
The only other way I can think of is to merge minecraft_forge.zip into minecraft.zip, I have spent around 2 hours looking on Google (watch as someone sees it within a couple of minutes) but it always shows me results for "How to zip multiple files", "How to make a zip file in C#" etc.
So I have come here looking for my answer, sorry if this is a lot to read but I always see comments on here saying "You didn't give enough information for us to help you with".
EDIT: The question in case it wasn't clear is: How am I able to put the contents of minecraft_forge.zip into minecraft.zip?
In your case, if you cannot unzip the files due to OS limitations, you need to "skip" unzipping temporary files to zip them. Instead, only handle input & output streams, as suggested in the answers found here: How can I add entries to an existing zip file in Java?
As you pointed out, "aux" is a protected keyword within windows and it does not matter what the file suffix may be; windows won't let you use it. Here are a couple of threads that discusses this in general.
Ref 1: Windows reserved words.
Ref 2: Windows reserved words.
If you are typing in commands to perform the copy or unzip, there is a chance you can get this to work by using a path prefix of the following \\.\ or \\?\. When I tested this, it worked with either a single or double back-slash following the period or question mark. Such that the following work:
\\.\c:\paths\etc
\\.\\c:\paths\etc
\\?\c:\path\etc
\\?\\c:\path\etc
I used the following command to test this. When trying to rename through windows explorer it gave a "The specified device name is invalid." error message. From the command line it worked just fine. I should point out, that once you create these files, you will have to manually delete them using the same technique. Windows Explorer reports that these text files which have a size of 0 bytes "is too large for the destination file system", ie... the recycle bin.
rename "\.\c:\temp\New Text Document.txt" aux.txt
del "\.\c:\temp\aux.txt"
As far as copying directly from zip or jar files, I tried this myself and it appeared to work. I used 7-zip and opened the jars directly using the "open archive..." windows explorer context menu. I then dragged-and-dropped the contents from forge.jar to the minecraft jar file. Since it is the minecraft jar file with the offending file name the chance of needing to create a temporary file on the filesystem is reduced. I did see someone mention that 7-zip may extract to a temporary file when copying between jars and zips.
7-zip reference on copying between archives
I should point out that my copy of minecraft jar (minecraft_server.1.8.7.jar) did not contain a file named aux.class. I also did not try to use the jar after the copy/merge. Nor did I spend too much time trying to figure out how well it merged the two contents since it appears like there may be a conflict with com\google\common\base\ since there are similar class name but with different $ variable suffixes on them.
I hope these two possible suggestions could give you some room to work with to find a solution for your needs... if you're still looking.
I have an app that has search functionality. The search algorithm is compiled to a separate dll. In the C# code for the search algorithm, I am using strings held in a settings file to point to the directory where the search index resides. But once the search code is compiled, the settings file is somehow incorporated in the dll. I want to have multiple versions of this code running on my server with each pointing to a different location for the index. And I want the operator to change a file to have each version point to something else as they find necessary. Both config files and settings files end up getting incorporated in the dll. How do I then accomplish this? What is the right industry standard way of doing this?
It's strange that the settings file is compiled... are you sure about that? Setting, config and resx files should be copied to the output directory, it's even a property you can modify on solution explorer. Then you should get it's values by doing
System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("YourKey")
But I think this won't know about user changes until app is restarted. If you want settings to be dynamic you should either store them on a database, or on a file that you open, read and close every time you need it.
Hope this helped!
I am using WritePrivateProfileString in c# (through DllImport) to store paths taken from textboxes on the interface. And the .ini file name is hardcoded in my application
string ini_file = ".\\config.ini";
However, when the file writing happens, the configuration file is written to the first path taken from the interface instead of writing it to the exe directory. Which is quite odd.
Debugging shows that the values are sent correctly to the WritePrivateProfileString but it still is written to the wrong location. Anyone knows why is that happenening?
I'd guess that something is changing the working directory of your process, most likely your code in the process. Note that the documentation has this to say:
If the lpFileName parameter does not contain a full path and file name for the file, WritePrivateProfileString searches the Windows directory for the file. If the file does not exist, this function creates the file in the Windows directory.
Now my guess is that this applies if you supply just a file name. Because your file name starts with . I believe that will force the function to start from the current working directory.
Having said all of that, and no matter what the cause of the problem is, you should use a fully-qualified path in order to make sure the file is written where you want it to be written. Whenever you want the file to go in a specific directory, it's always easiest to force that by using fully-qualified paths.
You can find the path to your executable using Application.ExecutablePath and then remove the file name part.
Another point to make is that the same directory as the executable may be a bad choice. If your program is installed under the Program Files directory then the directory which contains the executable will not be generally writeable. I think you should consider using a directory under in the user profile. Look for one of the Environment.SpecialFolder values.
Further to David Heffernan's answer - you can use
Path.GetDirectoryName(Application.ExecutablePath);
to safely get just the running application's folder part.
If you're in a dll rather than an executable, you can use
Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(MyClass)).CodeBase);
Both require System.IO, and were originally posted here. Second example also requires System.Reflection).
Application data files are supposed to be written to the LocalApplicationData special folder.
string path = System.Environment.GetFolderPath(System.Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData);
You typically will not have permissions to write into the Program Files folder etc.