I want to get the name of the currently running program, that is the executable name of the program. In C/C++ you get it from args[0].
System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName
System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName - Returns the filename with extension (e.g. MyApp.exe).
System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().ProcessName - Returns the filename without extension (e.g. MyApp).
System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainModule.FileName - Returns the full path and filename (e.g. C:\Examples\Processes\MyApp.exe). You could then pass this into System.IO.Path.GetFileName() or System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension() to achieve the same results as the above.
This should suffice:
Environment.GetCommandLineArgs()[0];
System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess() gets the currently running process. You can use the ProcessName property to figure out the name. Below is a sample console app.
using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine(Process.GetCurrentProcess().ProcessName);
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
This is the code which worked for me:
string fullName = Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location;
string myName = Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(fullName);
All the examples above gave me the processName with vshost or the running dll name.
Try this:
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()
This returns you a System.Reflection.Assembly instance that has all the data you could ever want to know about the current application. I think that the Location property might get what you are after specifically.
Why nobody suggested this, its simple.
Path.GetFileName(Application.ExecutablePath)
Couple more options:
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Name
Path.GetFileName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().ManifestModule.Name;
will give you FileName of your app like; "MyApplication.exe"
If you need the Program name to set up a firewall rule, use:
System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainModule.FileName
This will ensure that the name is correct both when debugging in VisualStudio and when running the app directly in windows.
When uncertain or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
class Ourself
{
public static string OurFileName() {
System.Reflection.Assembly _objParentAssembly;
if (System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly() == null)
_objParentAssembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetCallingAssembly();
else
_objParentAssembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly();
if (_objParentAssembly.CodeBase.StartsWith("http://"))
throw new System.IO.IOException("Deployed from URL");
if (System.IO.File.Exists(_objParentAssembly.Location))
return _objParentAssembly.Location;
if (System.IO.File.Exists(System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName))
return System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName;
if (System.IO.File.Exists(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location))
return System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location;
throw new System.IO.IOException("Assembly not found");
}
}
I can't claim to have tested each option, but it doesn't do anything stupid like returning the vhost during debugging sessions.
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location returns location of exe name if assembly is not loaded from memory.
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().CodeBase returns location as URL.
This works if you need only the application name without extension:
Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName);
You can use Environment.GetCommandLineArgs() to obtain the arguments and Environment.CommandLine to obtain the actual command line as entered.
Also, you can use Assembly.GetEntryAssembly() or Process.GetCurrentProcess().
However, when debugging, you should be careful as this final example may give your debugger's executable name (depending on how you attach the debugger) rather than your executable, as may the other examples.
IF you are looking for the full path information of your executable, the reliable way to do it is to use the following:
var executable = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainModule
.FileName.Replace(".vshost", "");
This eliminates any issues with intermediary dlls, vshost, etc.
If you are publishing a single file application in .NET 6.0 or above, you can use Environment.ProcessPath
Is this what you want:
Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly ().Location
On .Net Core (or Mono), most of the answers won't apply when the binary defining the process is the runtime binary of Mono or .Net Core (dotnet) and not your actual application you're interested in. In that case, use this:
var myName = Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location);
For windows apps (forms and console) I use this:
Add a reference to System.Windows.Forms in VS then:
using System.Windows.Forms;
namespace whatever
{
class Program
{
static string ApplicationName = Application.ProductName.ToString();
static void Main(string[] args)
{
........
}
}
}
This works correctly for me whether I am running the actual executable or debugging within VS.
Note that it returns the application name without the extension.
John
Super easy, here:
Environment.CurrentDirectory + "\\" + Process.GetCurrentProcess().ProcessName
To get the path and the name
System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainModule.FileName
Related
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"
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"
I am using NUnit to test one functionality where I need to load XML file to object. The XML file is in location of the Console Application.
I have Following method where configuration will be read :
public string GetConfiguration(TempFlexProcessor processor)
{
var exePath = Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location);
var configPath = Path.Combine(Path.GetFullPath(exePath), "configuration");
var configFile = string.Format(#"{0}.xml", processor.GetType().Name);
}
Now in my NUnit Test I have test method where I test GetConfiguration :
[Test]
public void TempFlexProcessorExecuteTest()
{
#region Given
#endregion
#region When
var tempFlexProcessor = new TempFlexProcessor();
var actual = tempFlexProcessor.GetConfiguration(tempFlexProcessor);
#endregion
Assert.AreEqual("path of the file", actual);
}
But System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly() is null, please help.
I used AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory instead of System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location
I suspect the problem is that NUnit is running your tests in a different AppDomain, but without using ExecuteAssembly. From the documentation for Assembly.GetEntryAssembly:
Gets the process executable in the default application domain. In other application domains, this is the first executable that was executed by AppDomain.ExecuteAssembly.
It's not clear which assembly you really want to get - even if this did return something "appropriate" for NUnit, that's likely to be the NUnit executable, which would be well away from any configuration directories you happen to have.
Basically, I think that you should at least provide an alternative way of specifying the configuration directory - and you might want to reconsider whether using GetEntryAssembly is a good idea anyway. (Aside from anything else, it's slightly odd that you're calling GetConfiguration on a processor and passing in another processor... that may be suitable for your design, but it's at least somewhat unusual, given that in your test case you're passing in a reference to the same object.)
I am using the following code within a class:
string filePath = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/email/teste.html");
The file teste.html is in the folder
But when it will open the file the following error is being generated:
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Don't use Server.MapPath. It's slow. Use this instead, HttpRuntime.AppDomainAppPath. As long as your web site is running, this property is always available to you.
Then use it like this:
string filePath = Path.Combine(HttpRuntime.AppDomainAppPath, "email/teste.html");
if the code is not running from within a thread is executing a httprequest then HttpContext.Current is null (for example when you method is called via BeginInvoke) - see http://forums.asp.net/t/1131004.aspx/1 .
You can always use HttpRuntime see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.httpruntime.aspx
If there is no HttpContext (e.g. when the method is called via BeginInvoke, as Yahia pointed out), the call to HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath() must fail. For those scenarios, there's HostingEnvironment.MapPath() in the System.Web.Hosting namespace.
string filePath = HostingEnvironment.MapPath("~/email/teste.html");
You can use something like the following piece of code. One thing to note is that I was facing an issue, where I was trying to access a .txt file from within a TestMethod and everything was failing except for this...and yeah it works for non-Unit Test Scenarios too.
string filePath = Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory,#"..\..") + "\\email\\teste.html";
Issue: I had an "Images" folder inside a class library project. But using the above answers, I was not able to get the physical path of the folder to read/write the files inside that folder.
Solution: The below code worked for me to get a physical path in the class library project.
string physicalPath = System.IO.Path.GetFullPath("..\\..\\Images");
I hope, it will help someone who is facing the same issue as me.
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"