My structure is like this picture below:
How can I write a code that gets me the path to the highlighted one which is "ConenctionsList.xml" ?
I tried something like this but this take me to bin folder
this.XmlPlath = Path.Combine(Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location), #"ConnectionsList.XML");
It is good that XmlPath points to the bin folder, the trick is to set ConnectionList.xml to be copied in the output. Just, enter its properties and set Copy to Output to Always or even better - If Newer.
Note: Imagine that your application will be deployed and your paths within the project or solution do not make sense in the deployed location. Only relative paths to the executable (or some assembly) are important (except if GAC registering or something similar is used).
You need to know what the absolute path of that file is to reference it in code. Referencing it by where it resides in Visual Studio is not adequate. More often than not, if you are running a program and wish to read in a config file of some sort, the designer will put the configuration file in the same place as the executable and reference it using various methods, one of which is listed below:
string filename = "ConnectionsList.xml";
string filePath = Path.Combine(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory(),filename);
Please reference links below, and other threads on Stack Overflow for any additional details. This general topic is addressed in numerous places.
MSDN GetCurrentDirectory
MSDN Path.Combine
Related
I have a seemingly basic question, but I can't access a folder inside my project (actually, it is a project that is one of the references of the main project), which is a folder called "pdfs" that contains 1 PDF that I want to convert to base64.
I put the "pdfs" folder in the same level of the file from where I call it, as I thought it would be easier to access (actionDB.cs file, which is in services/actions/actionDB.cs). The "pdfs" folder is in services/actions/pdfs).
But there is no way to get the correct path of this folder.
On the contrary, if I put the folder in c: , getting path = "c:\\pdfs", and the pdf file there, I can easily find it and convert the pdf perfectly in the code.
Any idea how to access these folders that are inside the projects, as if they were assets? I already put 'copy always: to the destination' and 'type of compilation: content' in the pdf properties, but I still can't access it.
I have already tried the following options:
string path = Path.Combine(Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location), #"pdfs");
string path = Path.Combine(Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location), #"services\actions\pdfs");
string path = Path.Combine(Path.GetDirectoryName(Environment.CurrentDirectory), #"services\actions\pdfs");
The namespace of the actionsDB is ProjectName.Data.services.actions.
I got results such as IIS/.., or other paths inside VS installation…, Assembly and some weird hashes.
Nothing works...
Could you help me with this?
Thank you very much,
CBD
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory is probably the most useful for accessing files whose location is relative to the application install directory.
I am loading this file which is located in a folder i created, the same folder is also rendered in the bin/debug folder, but i need to locate the file in the folder i created, the thing is the method which should find the path of the file by its name gives me the path of the debug folder instead of the on i created.
I have harcoded the path to show you the real location.
var path2 = System.IO.Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, "xulrunner");
var hardcodedPath= "C:\\Users\\Alan\\Desktop\\TabControl\\TabControl\\TabControl\\TabControl\\xulrunner";
This is the result of path2 variable:
C:\\Users\\Alan\\Desktop\\TabControl\\TabControl\\TabControl\\TabControl\\bin\\Debug\\xulrunner"
As you can see its pointing to different folder as hardcoded path.
When running from Visual Studio, the working directory is different from your project location, usually it is two folders up (from bin\Debug\). In your distributed application, the working directory might be the same as that of other files you want to access since you copy some other files to the working directory.
I would recommend to keep your code the same, and copy the files you require from your project to the output directory. You can do that by simply setting the Copy to Output Directory setting to Copy always or Copy if newer.
Changing the path to go two folders up is a bad idea, since this won't be true in production scenarios, and will thus break your code.
To get exactly what you are looking for, you could do the following:
var path2 = System.IO.Path.GetFullPath(System.IO.Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, "..\\..\\xulrunner"));
However, please be aware that Environment.CurrentDirectory can change as your program runs. I have found that using the %PROGRAMDATA% environment variable works well for creating a location where you save data. It allows for a more consistent solution for using paths.
Additionally, the code snippet provided will only really be useful when you are running through the IDE's debugger. When you deploy, it will likely not give you what you are expecting.
It would help to know what is the overall functional result you are hoping for.
My exact file path is as follows. This .txt file is not supposed to be deployed to bin/debug
string str = File.ReadAllText(#"C:\development\slnfolder\projfolder\myfile.txt");
How can I write the code so that I do not have to hard code full path to get to the file
I am trying to avoid hard coding path in the above line of code as follows:
string file = #"myfile.txt";
string str = Path.GetFullPath(file);
but the str ends up being as follows and is not able to find the file.
C:\development\slnfolder\projfolder\bin\debug\myfile.txt
You can include myfile.txt in your Visual Studio solution and go to its properties and set the Build action to Copy always (or Copy if newer if you want to avoid copying the file if it didn't change since the previous build...).
This way you're going to have the whole file in the target directory (i.e. bin\debug).
That's where it should map, because that's where your executable is running from. I'd highly suggest you ensure that the text file is moved to the bin/debug folder (there's a VS option to copy it down in properties) rather than trying to read two levels up. It will be much easier once you end up deploying your app instead of running it from visual studio.
If you're using Visual studio, than add the txt file to your project
right click on properties
set build action to none
and set copy to output directory to copy if newer
this will ensure that the txt file is always in the same folder as your executable
To avoid hard-coding something, you should:
"Soft-code" it (i.e. make it part of your product's configuration). You can use Configuration Settings APIs for that.
Take it as a parameter on the command line (read the directory location from one of the args passed to the Main method), or
Make a convention as to where it should be located, for example, in the data directory, which is a subdirectory of your current running directory (read from #"..\data\myfile.txt").
You can always define a combination of these methods, for example, use the "by convention" location when the configuration / command line option has not been specified.
I'm running into a lot of trouble while attempting to streamline XNA texture loading. I've given up on dynamically loading textures from a specified directory, so now I'm just trying to work with an organized collection of folders in the solution's content. I'm trying to use the following line of code:
Content.Load<Texture2D>(".\\Graphics\\Characters\\Char1");
"Char1" is the correct asset name, and it is stored in "Graphics\Characters" under Content in my solution explorer, but it still throws a "file not found" error. What am I doing wrong here?
EDIT: Turns out the debug bin folder created the wrong directory stucture: \Graphics\Characters\Characters. Thanks for the help regardless!
Try removing your leading slash. eg,
Content.Load<Texture2D>("Graphics\\Characters\\Char1");
Are you using a content project for these assets? You can set the 'Content Root' directory and the assets are all in relative paths from there.
Have a look at this msdn entry, hopefully that might help you out. Good luck.
From what you're saying, that the file is located in 'Content', make sure you do this before loading up anything:
Content.RootDirectory = "Content"
And get rid of the '.\' part.
You can set the RootDirectory property in Content to the root location of your content files. This will make your paths work correctly.
Also, no need for the single dot .\
What is your working directory? Typically it is bin\Debug (the location of the exe that is generated) and unless you are telling Visual Studio to copy your content files to this directory they are not located there.
Several options to fix this
You can add your content files to Visual Studio and set them to Deploy mode of Copy
You can manually copy them once
You can check to see if the current directory contains a particular file and go up two levels if it does not
You can use a constant to define the base directory and flex it depending on whether you are debugging or not.
Here is an example of 3
private string BaseDirectory = ".";
if (!Directory.Exists(".\Graphics"))
{
BaseDirectory = #"..\..";
}
...
Content.Load<Texture2D>(BaseDirectory + #"\Graphics\Characters\Char1");
Here is an example of the 4, note that if you are running in release mode this won't work too smoothly.
#if DEBUG
private const string BaseDirectory = #"..\..";
#else
private const string BaseDirectory = #".";
#endif
...
Content.Load<Texture2D>(BaseDirectory + #"\Graphics\Characters\Char1");
Also note that a string that starts with # does not allow \ escapes and is thus much easier to use to define directories.
So... I used to think that when you accessed a file but specified the name without a path (CAISLog.csv in my case) that .NET would expect the file to reside at the same path as the running .exe.
This works when I'm stepping through a solution (C# .NET2.* VS2K5) but when I run the app in normal mode (Started by a Websphere MQ Trigger monitor & running in the background as a network service) instead of accessing the file at the path where the .exe is it's being looked for at C:\WINDOWS\system32. If it matters The parent task's .exe is in almost the same folder structure/path as my app
I get a matching error: "System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\CAISLog.csv' is denied."
My workaround is to just fully qualify the location of my file. What I want to understand, however is "What is the .NET rule that governs how a path is resolved when only the file name is specified during IO?" I feel I'm missing some basic concept and it's bugging me bad.
edit - I'm not sure it's a.NET rule per se but Schmuli seems to be explaining the concept a little clearer. I will definitely try Rob Prouse's suggestions in the future so +1 on that too.
If anyone has some re-wording suggestions that emphasize I don't really care about finding the path to my .exe - rather just didn't understand what was going on with relative path resolution (and I may still have my terminlogy screwed up)...
When an application (WinForms) starts up, the Environment.CurrentDirectory contains the path to the application folder (i.e. the folder that contains the .exe assembly). Using any of the File Dialogs, ex. OpenFileDialog, SaveFileDialog, etc. will cause the current directory to change (if a different folder was selected).
When running a Windows Service, its containing folder is C:\Windows\System32, as that is the System folder and it is the System (i.e. the Operation System) that is actually running your Windows Service.
Note that specifying a relative path in most of the System.IO objects, will fall back to using the Environment.CurrentDirectory property.
As mentioned, there are several ways to obtain the path of the service executable, using Assembly.GetEntryAssembly() or Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly() and then using either the Location property or the CodeBase property (be aware that this is the file path, not directory, of the executable).
Another option is to use:
`System.IO.Directory.SetCurrentDirectory( System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory );`
Make the call in the Service's OnStart method, applying it to the whole application.
It is based on the current working directory which may or may not be the same as where your application resides, especially if started from a different program or a shortcut with a different working directory.
Rather than hard code the path, get the path to your program and use it. You can do this with something like this
Assembly ass = Assembly.GetEntryAssembly();
string dir = Path.GetDirectoryName(ass.Location);
string filename = Path.Combine( dir, "CAISLog.csv" );
This assumes that the entry assembly is where your file is. If not, you can change up getting the assembly for something like;
Assembly ass = Assembly.GetAssembly( typeof( AClassInYourAssembly ) );
Relative Path resolution never works against the path of the launching executable. It always works against the process' Current Directory, and you can't really expect that to always be set to the directory the .exe lives in.
If you need that behavior, then take care to find out the right path on your own and provide a fully qualified path to the file operations.
You can use this to specify a path that resides at the same path of your exe #"..\CAISLog.csv". Please note that the double dots refer to the parent directory of where ever your .exe lies.
RWendi