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How can a .NET assembly detect its own version within an IIS ASP.NET context?

I have a c# function that works great in a winforms app to detect its container DLL's version as stamped in AssemblyInfo.cs:
private string getVersion() {
System.Reflection.Assembly assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
FileVersionInfo fvi = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(assembly.Location);
string tempFileVersion = fvi.FileVersion;
if (tempFileVersion.EndsWith(".0")) {
return tempFileVersion.Substring(0, tempFileVersion.Length - 2);
} else {
return tempFileVersion;
}
}
The problem is, this function throws exceptions when it's called as part of an ASP.NET webapp in IIS. I'm assuming it comes down to permissions problems, but is there a way for a function to ask the DLL it lives in "what is your version" inside an IIS context?

Ultra-simple solution came from Steeeve:
Add new class:
public static class VersionInfo {
public const string VersionString = "1.0";
}
Modify 2 lines of AssemblyInfo.cs:
[assembly: AssemblyVersion(VersionInfo.VersionString)]
[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion(VersionInfo.VersionString)]
And now anywhere else inside my DLL that needs to know its version at run time can simply call VersionInfo.VersionString and not need to resort to messy and expensive reflection.

C# how to get dll assembly information?

If we want to get the version number of a dll we could use,
Assembly assembly = Assembly.LoadFrom("System.Xml");
Version ver = assembly.GetName().Version;
How to get the other information (like AssemblyTitle, AssemblyProduct, etc..) ?

You can use
var attribute = assembly.GetCustomAttribute<AssemblyTitleAttribute>();
var title = attribute.Title;
to get the attribute. And same solution for AssemblyProductAttribute.

How to get buildnumber / revision from Assembly? (4th digit)

Our build process updates the forth digit (buildnumber or revision) of the version number on every build.
I'm using the following code to try and get the version so that it can be displayed on the splash screen and about page.
var version = Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().GetName().Version;
var programName = "Version: " + version;
How come the 4th digit in the version number is always zero, and what can I change to get it to property reflect the build number?

Any assembly has two metadatas: the assembly version and the file version. The assembly version I don't know exactly how to take it. It seems that there is an AssemblyVersionAttribute but when I try to search for it, a null reference is returned.
But the File version you can take using this code:
public static Version GetAssemblyVersion (Assembly asm)
{
var attribute = Attribute.GetCustomAttribute(asm, typeof(AssemblyFileVersionAttribute), true) as AssemblyFileVersionAttribute;
return new Version(attribute.Version);
}
Generally, I use to synchronize so that file version = assembly version every time so I can grab assembly version using this code. Third party libraries, from my experience I can tell that are following this pattern also.

How to recursively load all referenced assemblies? [duplicate]

Is there a way to get the path for the assembly in which the current code resides? I do not want the path of the calling assembly, just the one containing the code.
Basically my unit test needs to read some xml test files which are located relative to the dll. I want the path to always resolve correctly regardless of whether the testing dll is run from TestDriven.NET, the MbUnit GUI or something else.
Edit: People seem to be misunderstanding what I'm asking.
My test library is located in say
C:\projects\myapplication\daotests\bin\Debug\daotests.dll
and I would like to get this path:
C:\projects\myapplication\daotests\bin\Debug\
The three suggestions so far fail me when I run from the MbUnit Gui:
Environment.CurrentDirectory
gives c:\Program Files\MbUnit
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(DaoTests)).Location
gives C:\Documents and
Settings\george\Local
Settings\Temp\ ....\DaoTests.dll
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location
gives the same as the previous.

Note: Assembly.CodeBase is deprecated in .NET Core/.NET 5+: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.reflection.assembly.codebase?view=net-5.0
Original answer:
I've defined the following property as we use this often in unit testing.
public static string AssemblyDirectory
{
get
{
string codeBase = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase;
UriBuilder uri = new UriBuilder(codeBase);
string path = Uri.UnescapeDataString(uri.Path);
return Path.GetDirectoryName(path);
}
}
The Assembly.Location property sometimes gives you some funny results when using NUnit (where assemblies run from a temporary folder), so I prefer to use CodeBase which gives you the path in URI format, then UriBuild.UnescapeDataString removes the File:// at the beginning, and GetDirectoryName changes it to the normal windows format.

Does this help?
//get the full location of the assembly with DaoTests in it
string fullPath = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(DaoTests)).Location;
//get the folder that's in
string theDirectory = Path.GetDirectoryName( fullPath );

It's as simple as this:
var dir = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;

Same as John's answer, but a slightly less verbose extension method.
public static string GetDirectoryPath(this Assembly assembly)
{
string filePath = new Uri(assembly.CodeBase).LocalPath;
return Path.GetDirectoryName(filePath);
}
Now you can do:
var localDir = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetDirectoryPath();
or if you prefer:
var localDir = typeof(DaoTests).Assembly.GetDirectoryPath();

The only solution that worked for me when using CodeBase and UNC Network shares was:
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(new System.Uri(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase).LocalPath);
It also works with normal URIs too.

This should work, unless the assembly is shadow copied:
string path = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location

I believe this would work for any kind of application:
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.RelativeSearchPath ?? AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory

What about this:
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);

AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
works with MbUnit GUI.

Starting with .net framework 4.6 / .net core 1.0, there is now a AppContext.BaseDirectory, which should give the same result as AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, except that AppDomains were not part of the .net core 1.x /.net standard 1.x API.
AppContext.BaseDirectory
EDIT: The documentation now even state:
In .NET 5.0 and later versions, for bundled assemblies, the value returned is the containing directory of the host executable.
Indeed, Assembly.Location doc doc says :
In .NET 5.0 and later versions, for bundled assemblies, the value returned is an empty string.

I suspect that the real issue here is that your test runner is copying your assembly to a different location. There's no way at runtime to tell where the assembly was copied from, but you can probably flip a switch to tell the test runner to run the assembly from where it is and not to copy it to a shadow directory.
Such a switch is likely to be different for each test runner, of course.
Have you considered embedding your XML data as resources inside your test assembly?

How about this ...
string ThisdllDirectory = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);
Then just hack off what you do not need

tl;dr
The concept of an assembly and a DLL file are not the same. Depending on how the assembly was loaded the path information gets lost or is not available at all.
Most of the time the provided answers will work, though.
There is one misconception the question and the previous answers have. In most of the cases the provided answers will work just fine but
there are cases where it is not possible to get the correct path of the assembly which the current code resides.
The concept of an assembly - which contains executable code - and a dll file - which contains the assembly - are not tightly coupled. An assembly may
come from a DLL file but it does not have to.
Using the Assembly.Load(Byte[]) (MSDN) method you can load an assembly directly from a byte array in memory.
It does not matter where the byte array comes from. It could be loaded from a file, downloaded from the internet, dynamically generated,...
Here is an example which loads an assembly from a byte array. The path information gets lost after the file was loaded. It is not possible to
get the original file path and all previous described methods do not work.
This method is located in the executing assembly which is located at "D:/Software/DynamicAssemblyLoad/DynamicAssemblyLoad/bin/Debug/Runner.exe"
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var fileContent = File.ReadAllBytes(#"C:\Library.dll");
var assembly = Assembly.Load(fileContent);
// Call the method of the library using reflection
assembly
?.GetType("Library.LibraryClass")
?.GetMethod("PrintPath", BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static)
?.Invoke(null, null);
Console.WriteLine("Hello from Application:");
Console.WriteLine($"GetViaAssemblyCodeBase: {GetViaAssemblyCodeBase(assembly)}");
Console.WriteLine($"GetViaAssemblyLocation: {assembly.Location}");
Console.WriteLine($"GetViaAppDomain : {AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory}");
Console.ReadLine();
}
This class is located in the Library.dll:
public class LibraryClass
{
public static void PrintPath()
{
var assembly = Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(LibraryClass));
Console.WriteLine("Hello from Library:");
Console.WriteLine($"GetViaAssemblyCodeBase: {GetViaAssemblyCodeBase(assembly)}");
Console.WriteLine($"GetViaAssemblyLocation: {assembly.Location}");
Console.WriteLine($"GetViaAppDomain : {AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory}");
}
}
For the sake of completeness here is the implementations of GetViaAssemblyCodeBase() which is the same for both assemblies:
private static string GetViaAssemblyCodeBase(Assembly assembly)
{
var codeBase = assembly.CodeBase;
var uri = new UriBuilder(codeBase);
return Uri.UnescapeDataString(uri.Path);
}
The Runner prints the following output:
Hello from Library:
GetViaAssemblyCodeBase: D:/Software/DynamicAssemblyLoad/DynamicAssemblyLoad/bin/Debug/Runner.exe
GetViaAssemblyLocation:
GetViaAppDomain : D:\Software\DynamicAssemblyLoad\DynamicAssemblyLoad\bin\Debug\
Hello from Application:
GetViaAssemblyCodeBase: D:/Software/DynamicAssemblyLoad/DynamicAssemblyLoad/bin/Debug/Runner.exe
GetViaAssemblyLocation:
GetViaAppDomain : D:\Software\DynamicAssemblyLoad\DynamicAssemblyLoad\bin\Debug\
As you can see, neither the code base, location or base directory are correct.

As far as I can tell, most of the other answers have a few problems.
The correct way to do this for a disk-based (as opposed to web-based), non-GACed assembly is to use the currently executing assembly's CodeBase property.
This returns a URL (file://). Instead of messing around with string manipulation or UnescapeDataString, this can be converted with minimal fuss by leveraging the LocalPath property of Uri.
var codeBaseUrl = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase;
var filePathToCodeBase = new Uri(codeBaseUrl).LocalPath;
var directoryPath = Path.GetDirectoryName(filePathToCodeBase);

var assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
var assemblyPath = assembly.GetFiles()[0].Name;
var assemblyDir = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(assemblyPath);

Here is a VB.NET port of John Sibly's code. Visual Basic is not case sensitive, so a couple of his variable names were colliding with type names.
Public Shared ReadOnly Property AssemblyDirectory() As String
Get
Dim codeBase As String = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase
Dim uriBuilder As New UriBuilder(codeBase)
Dim assemblyPath As String = Uri.UnescapeDataString(uriBuilder.Path)
Return Path.GetDirectoryName(assemblyPath)
End Get
End Property

In all these years, nobody has actually mentioned this one. A trick I learned from the awesome ApprovalTests project. The trick is that you use the debugging information in the assembly to find the original directory.
This will not work in RELEASE mode, nor with optimizations enabled, nor on a machine different from the one it was compiled on.
But this will get you paths that are relative to the location of the source code file you call it from
public static class PathUtilities
{
public static string GetAdjacentFile(string relativePath)
{
return GetDirectoryForCaller(1) + relativePath;
}
public static string GetDirectoryForCaller()
{
return GetDirectoryForCaller(1);
}
public static string GetDirectoryForCaller(int callerStackDepth)
{
var stackFrame = new StackTrace(true).GetFrame(callerStackDepth + 1);
return GetDirectoryForStackFrame(stackFrame);
}
public static string GetDirectoryForStackFrame(StackFrame stackFrame)
{
return new FileInfo(stackFrame.GetFileName()).Directory.FullName + Path.DirectorySeparatorChar;
}
}

I've been using Assembly.CodeBase instead of Location:
Assembly a;
a = Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(DaoTests));
string s = a.CodeBase.ToUpper(); // file:///c:/path/name.dll
Assert.AreEqual(true, s.StartsWith("FILE://"), "CodeBase is " + s);
s = s.Substring(7, s.LastIndexOf('/') - 7); // 7 = "file://"
while (s.StartsWith("/")) {
s = s.Substring(1, s.Length - 1);
}
s = s.Replace("/", "\\");
It's been working, but I'm no longer sure it is 100% correct. The page at http://blogs.msdn.com/suzcook/archive/2003/06/26/assembly-codebase-vs-assembly-location.aspx says:
"The CodeBase is a URL to the place where the file was found, while the Location is the path where it was actually loaded. For example, if the assembly was downloaded from the internet, its CodeBase may start with "http://", but its Location may start with "C:\". If the file was shadow-copied, the Location would be the path to the copy of the file in the shadow copy dir.
It’s also good to know that the CodeBase is not guaranteed to be set for assemblies in the GAC. Location will always be set for assemblies loaded from disk, however."
You may want to use CodeBase instead of Location.

The current directory where you exist.
Environment.CurrentDirectory; // This is the current directory of your application
If you copy the .xml file out with build you should find it.
or
System.Reflection.Assembly assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(SomeObject));
// The location of the Assembly
assembly.Location;

You can get the bin path by
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.RelativeSearchPath

All of the proposed answers work when the developer can change the code to include the required snippet, but if you wanted to do this without changing any code you could use Process Explorer.
It will list all executing dlls on the system, you may need to determine the process id of your running application, but that is usually not too difficult.
I've written a full description of how do this for a dll inside II - http://nodogmablog.bryanhogan.net/2016/09/locating-and-checking-an-executing-dll-on-a-running-web-server/

in a windows form app, you can simply use Application.StartupPath
but for DLLs and console apps the code is much harder to remember...
string slash = Path.DirectorySeparatorChar.ToString();
string root = Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);
root += slash;
string settingsIni = root + "settings.ini"

You will get incorrect directory if a path contains the '#' symbol.
So I use a modification of the John Sibly answer that is combination UriBuilder.Path and UriBuilder.Fragment:
public static string AssemblyDirectory
{
get
{
string codeBase = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase;
UriBuilder uri = new UriBuilder(codeBase);
//modification of the John Sibly answer
string path = Uri.UnescapeDataString(uri.Path.Replace("/", "\\") +
uri.Fragment.Replace("/", "\\"));
return Path.GetDirectoryName(path);
}
}

For ASP.Net, it doesn't work. I found a better covered solution at Why AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory not contains "bin" in asp.net app?. It works for both Win Application and ASP.Net Web Application.
public string ApplicationPath
{
get
{
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.RelativeSearchPath))
{
return AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory; //exe folder for WinForms, Consoles, Windows Services
}
else
{
return AppDomain.CurrentDomain.RelativeSearchPath; //bin folder for Web Apps
}
}
}

string path = Path.GetDirectoryName(typeof(DaoTests).Module.FullyQualifiedName);

This is what I came up with. In between web projects, unit tests (nunit and resharper test runner); I found this worked for me.
I have been looking for code to detect what configuration the build is in, Debug/Release/CustomName. Alas, the #if DEBUG. So if someone can improve that!
Feel free to edit and improve.
Getting app folder. Useful for web roots, unittests to get the folder of test files.
public static string AppPath
{
get
{
DirectoryInfo appPath = new DirectoryInfo(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory);
while (appPath.FullName.Contains(#"\bin\", StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase)
|| appPath.FullName.EndsWith(#"\bin", StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase))
{
appPath = appPath.Parent;
}
return appPath.FullName;
}
}
Getting bin folder: Useful for executing assemblies using reflection. If files are copied there due to build properties.
public static string BinPath
{
get
{
string binPath = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;
if (!binPath.Contains(#"\bin\", StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase)
&& !binPath.EndsWith(#"\bin", StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase))
{
binPath = Path.Combine(binPath, "bin");
//-- Please improve this if there is a better way
//-- Also note that apps like webapps do not have a debug or release folder. So we would just return bin.
#if DEBUG
if (Directory.Exists(Path.Combine(binPath, "Debug")))
binPath = Path.Combine(binPath, "Debug");
#else
if (Directory.Exists(Path.Combine(binPath, "Release")))
binPath = Path.Combine(binPath, "Release");
#endif
}
return binPath;
}
}

This should work:
ExeConfigurationFileMap fileMap = new ExeConfigurationFileMap();
Assembly asm = Assembly.GetCallingAssembly();
String path = Path.GetDirectoryName(new Uri(asm.EscapedCodeBase).LocalPath);
string strLog4NetConfigPath = System.IO.Path.Combine(path, "log4net.config");
I am using this to deploy DLL file libraries along with some configuration file (this is to use log4net from within the DLL file).

I find my solution adequate for the retrieval of the location.
var executingAssembly = new FileInfo((Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)).Directory.FullName;

I got the same behaviour in the NUnit in the past. By default NUnit copies your assembly into the temp directory. You can change this behaviour in the NUnit settings:
Maybe TestDriven.NET and MbUnit GUI have the same settings.

I use this to get the path to the Bin Directory:
var i = Environment.CurrentDirectory.LastIndexOf(#"\");
var path = Environment.CurrentDirectory.Substring(0,i);
You get this result:
"c:\users\ricooley\documents\visual studio
2010\Projects\Windows_Test_Project\Windows_Test_Project\bin"

How do I programmatically get the product (not assembly) version of a running program using C#?

I have a program that I have written and am trying to create an about box for. I recently updated my program's product version to 1.00.0003, and I want this to be reflected in the about window.
The default setup of the aboutBox shows a value of 1.0.0.0, which is the assembly version, not the product version. I have since been scouring the Internet to find how to get the product version to be shown. I have tried all of these:
{
Assembly assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
FileVersionInfo fileVersionInfo = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(assembly.Location);
string version = fileVersionInfo.ProductVersion;
Debug.WriteLine(version);
Debug.WriteLine(assembly.GetName().Version);
string v = VersionNumber;
Debug.WriteLine(v);
Debug.WriteLine( fileVersionInfo.FileVersion);
Debug.WriteLine(Application.ProductVersion);
Debug.WriteLine(AssemblyProductVersion);
Assembly assembly2 = Assembly.GetEntryAssembly();
FileVersionInfo fileVersionInfo2 = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(assembly.Location);
string version2 = fileVersionInfo2.ProductVersion;
Debug.WriteLine(version2);
Debug.WriteLine(assembly2.GetName().Version);
return version;
}
private string _ourVersion = "Version: v";
private string VersionNumber
{
get
{
System.Reflection.Assembly _assemblyInfo =
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
if (System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationDeployment.IsNetworkDeployed)
_ourVersion += ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment.CurrentVersion.ToString();
else
{
if (_assemblyInfo != null)
_ourVersion += _assemblyInfo.GetName().Version.ToString();
}
return _ourVersion;
}
}
private static string AssemblyProductVersion
{
get
{
object[] attributes = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()
.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(AssemblyInformationalVersionAttribute), false);
return attributes.Length == 0 ?
"" :
((AssemblyInformationalVersionAttribute)attributes[0]).InformationalVersion;
}
}
Every single one of these returns 1.0.0.0 (yes, I did look for their output in the console, not what was actually displayed), instead 1.00.0003 like I need. The product version is set in the General Information tab of the InstallShield setup. When it is installed, going to Programs and Features shows a Product Version of 1.00.0003, so I cannot figure out why this is so hard to programmatically retrieve this value. Any ideas?

Your product version should match the assembly version - have a look at How to make Product Version property match executable's version number automatically

The version 1.00.0003 you want to retrieve is the version of the installer of your product. To get this version programmatically you need to inspect the installer (MSI file), not the installed files. I'm not sure that is what you want to do but there is a answer to the question Checking ProductVersion of an MSI programatically that explains how to do that.
If you want your executable files to contain the same version number you need to store the version number in some way either using a .NET attribute like AssemblyFileVersion or a Windows VERSIONINFO resource.
InstallShield allows you to specify the product version on the command line. This allows you to store your product version in a single file and then use that as the source of both the product version embedded in your installer as well as AssemblyFileVersion of your assemblies.

If only the installer knows about this version information, the only place you could retrieve it from would be the registry.
Uninstall Registry Key:
The following installer properties give the values written under the registry key:
VersionMinor Derived from ProductVersion property
VersionMajor Derived from ProductVersion property
Version Derived from ProductVersion property
But I'd go with #devdigital's (implied) suggestion - you ought to have one of the assembly versions actually matching your installer version.