Executable directory where application is running from?
I need to get the path (not the executable) where my application is running from:
System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory()
When I run the above statement with & "/images/image.jpg" on my local machine it works fine but when I install the application on another machine it says it cannot find the file and there is a lot of extra path information some.
I just need the directory of where the app is running. I am coding in VB.NET with Visual Studio 2008.
Thanks!
This is the first post on google so I thought I'd post different ways that are available and how they compare. Unfortunately I can't figure out how to create a table here, so it's an image. The code for each is below the image using fully qualified names.
My.Application.Info.DirectoryPath
Environment.CurrentDirectory
System.Windows.Forms.Application.StartupPath
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.CodeBase
New System.UriBuilder(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.CodeBase)
Path.GetDirectoryName(Uri.UnescapeDataString((New System.UriBuilder(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.CodeBase).Path)))
Uri.UnescapeDataString((New System.UriBuilder(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.CodeBase).Path))
--- Edit October 18, 2021:
Sigh... None of the above work if using net5.0 or net6.0 and publishing app as single-file bundle. Best I got now is:
// This will give you the directory but not the assembly
string basedir = AppContext.BaseDirectory;
// Before you package the app as a single file bundle, you will get the dll.
// But after you publish it, you'll get the exe.
string pathToExecutable = Environment.GetCommandLineArgs()[0].Replace(".dll", ".exe");
Dim strPath As String = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName( _
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase)
Taken from HOW TO: Determine the Executing Application's Path (MSDN)
I needed to know this and came here, before I remembered the Environment class.
In case anyone else had this issue, just use this: Environment.CurrentDirectory
.
Example:
Dim dataDirectory As String = String.Format("{0}\Data\", Environment.CurrentDirectory)
When run from Visual Studio in debug mode yeilds:
C:\Development\solution folder\application folder\bin\debug
This is the exact behaviour I needed, and its simple and straightforward enough.