Okay, so. I'm going to try to explain this as best as I can.
I have been working on a program, obviously. Basically, the user selects one file hits the "Replace" button and it replaces the files in a AppData folder.
Well, I got how to make an AppData folder for my program.
Basically, what I would like to do is first off take the selected file (that's through the open file dialog) and copy to the AppData that I created for one. Then I need to rename the file and copy the file to the other folder.
I've been looking and can't seem to find what I need...which sucks.
EDIT:
My second question. Say the user chooses "myfile.txt" there's a folder in the AppData at ".../Roaming/thefiles/file.txt"
I need to rename and replace that "file.txt", but I can not figure out how to move to that directory since everyone's username is different.
First of all you dont need to create a folder in AppData it will be readily available.
File.Copy(sourcepath,destinationpath); can be used for this purpose
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc148994.aspx check this out.
use Application.UserAppDataPath or Application.CommonAppDataPath to access your program's app data folder.
you can call File.Copy(sourcepath,Path.Combine(Application.UserAppDataPath,"yourfile.ext"));
Edit
I understand you mean logged in user of the system
using (OpenFileDialog fd = new OpenFileDialog())
{
if (fd.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
{
string fullFileName = fd.FileName;
string fileNameWithExt = Path.GetFileName(fullFileName);
string destPath = Path.Combine(Application.UserAppDataPath, fileNameWithExt);
File.Copy(fd.FileName, destPath);
}
}
the above code will copy the selected file to AppData path of your Program that belongs to logged in user, ex: if you logged in as user1 to windows this will be copied under user1's AppData
Edit2
If am not mistaken then Application.UserAppDataPath will always gives the path of current logged user of windows, so without worrying of losing other user's data you can safely move the file inside that Directory
Related
I want to save my Files in a more generic way than on Desktop.
So i want to create my own Subfolder in Programs Folder, which i can use to save my stuff.
But i get "System.UnauthorizedAccessException" if i try to create a File using File.AppendAllText(#"C:\Program Files\MySubfolder\MyFile.txt,someString);
I even disabled the Protection of the Folders manually.
My App is not yet compiled so i cant run it as administrator, can i?
How does every Program use this Folder but i cant?
Do i need to compile my App everytime i make a small change and want to test it?
I would really apreciate Help since im stuck with that multiple hours now
It is a very bad practice to try to write in Program Files. This folder as well as other sensitive folders are protected by the OS to prevent malicious code hide between your programs or to prevent unsavy users from messing on the installed programs.
If you want to write your private stuff on your disk you can use these folders
string folder = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonApplicationData);
string myFolder = Path.Combine(folder, "MyReservedPath");
Directory.CreateDirectory(myFolder); // if exists does nothing
string myFile = Path.Combine(myFolder, "MyPrivateData.txt");
File.WriteAllText(myFile, dataToWriteOnDisk);
The CommonApplicationData resolves to C:\programdata and this place is usually used to store information needed by your program for any user that uses it.
If you want to store some data that your program produces then it is better to use the
Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments);
There are many other places available, just look at the Environment.SpecialFolder enum.
This code will give you a list of everything mapped to the actual folders in your system
foreach (Environment.SpecialFolder x in Enum.GetValues(typeof(Environment.SpecialFolder)))
Console.WriteLine($"{x} = {Environment.GetFolderPath(x)}");
This is what i'm trying to do in my application:
On startup, the application searches for specific files (*.txt for example) in a specific folder (let's say c:\testfolder + all subfolders) and stores their path in a simple string[]. Some files might be located in the root-folder (c:\testfolder), some files have additional subfolders (c:\testfolder\subfolderA\subfolderB).
Now, when I click on a button, all selected files are moved to a temp-folder (like c:\testfolder\temp). When I now close and reopen the application, I want to move all files from the temp-folder to their original location. Obviously this won't work, since the original path was overwritten after restarting the app.
This might be an easy task, but could someone maybe give me hint on how I could do this?
/edit
Would it be possible to ignore a specific folder (temp-folder in this case) when searching for files? Basically moved files are ignored & the old path is still saved (in Properties.Settings. for example) from the first start.
Current code I'm using to get all files:
var files = Directory.EnumerateFiles(file_path, "*.*", SearchOption.AllDirectories).Where(s => s.EndsWith(".jpg") || s.EndsWith(".png"));
I have a .txt file that I need to read in my program. For the moment I have the directory hardcoded as such:
file = new StreamReader(#"C:\Users\<username>\Documents\File.txt");
However that will (obviously) not work on any other PC that does not have that access to altering the code, or (by some strange happenstance) the same directory as the original code.
How can I get the full file path to set it in my program using C#?
You could create the file in their Application Data directory (they could still find it if they wanted to, but at least it wouldn't be as obvious as the My Documents folder).
When you want to access it, use the Environment class. There are methods for locating special folders for the current user, without resorting to hard-coded paths:
var filePath = Path.Combine(Environment.GetFolderPath(
Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData), "File.txt");
Option 1:
Application.StartupPath can be used for the purpose.
It gets the path for the executable file that started the application, not including the executable name.
Keep File.txt with your executable.
Option 2:
Use Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData
It gives directory that serves as a common repository for application-specific data for the current roaming user.
NOTE: If you want to restrict the user to look into the contents of File.txt then you might need to encrypt the contents.
I'm working on a simple progam, and part of it populates a list from a txt file.
this probably is not a smart question but, I didn't find any info on this.
I was wondering where is the best place to put text files in the application directory.
O know about the Resouces but, I wasn't able to get the path of the file I stored there.
so 2 questions:
where is the best place to put a txt file? (or any other importent file to use in the application)
if I put files in the Resources how do I get its path ?
(sorry fo my English)
If these are files that you do not need to expose to the users and only serve an internal purpose, then you can embed them in your assembly as resources, and extract them when you need them.
To do this, create a new directory in your application. Let's call it 'Resources'. Then, add text files to it. Use the properties window of each text file to change the BuildAction setting to "Embedded Resource". Then, in your code once you need the contents of the file you can use code like this to extract it:
using System.Reflection;
// ...
using (Stream stream = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream("MyApplication.Resources.MyFile.txt")) {
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(stream)) {
string contents = reader.ReadToEnd();
// Do stuff with the text here
}
}
If you don't want to do this, the correct location to place files is in a directory you create under the AppData directory. This is a known system path, which you can obtain like this:
string folderLocation = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData);
string myPath = Path.Combine(folderLocation, "MyAppName");
You can then use a StreamReader or other class in System.IO to find/enumerate and read the files.
When an application has associated/companion data files it sometimes makes sense to embed them as a Resource, because then there is less chance for them to be tampered with e.g. deleted, or the data modified.
And other times it makes sense to keep the file loose....so you have to decide the best place to store them....you can locate these in the place where the application is installed, or in the Application Data/AppData directory.
For embedding files in Resources have a look at this link:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319292
It has a step-by-step guide showing how to embed a file (e.g. a Text file into Resources), and then using a StreamReader to access it and read its contents.
To store the files and access them from a suitably located directory you can use:
System.Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData
with
Environment.GetFolderPath()
to find out where the AppData directory is.
Then when you create your application Setup/Installer, you should get it to create a directory for your application underneath AppData, and then you can decide what files you want to be installed into that location.
See:
Saving a file to Application Data in c#
Note, ApplicationData "roams"...i.e. when you logon to a different machine, the files are transferred onto that machine as part of your profile....you may not want this....so you could instead use:
System.Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonApplicationData
say my application is installed in C:\programfiles\xyz\ I've some setting & other data files (*.dat files) in this directory too.
My application uses OpenFileDialog to open an image. Problem is that when ever user browses to some directory (say MyPictures) for an image. The current working directory of the application becomes that directory (MyPictures in this case).
After user inputs the image. I do some processing over it and save some values to imagedata.dat which will be located in the path where original application is installed.(C:\programfiles\xyz here )
In my code I'm just using FileStream("imagedata.dat",...,...) without any path prefix before the filename. Problem here is that application is crashing because it is searching for imagedata.dat in 'MyPictures\imagedata.dat'.
How can I avoid this?
You should be using absolute path names when saving data to files. The current working directory is controlled by the user, not by you (for example, if they launch your process from a shortcut then the working directory could've been changed before your process even starts up).
Also, you should never save anything under C:\Program Files during normal use. Doing this means your program needs to be running as an administrator, and unless you're doing administrator-y things then you should be able to run it as a regular user.
The correct thing to do in your case is to use the Environment.GetFolderPath() function to get the location of the ApplicationData folder and save your data under there. Just choose a sub-directory based on your application's name.
You could save it to GetCurrentDirectory then restore with SetCurrentDirectory. However, I agree wih codeka that using the appropriate GetFolderPath (probably ApplicationData, CommonApplicationData or LocalApplicationData) is a better solution.