Develop Reference

How to create a content file and navigate into it from a console application?

Im working on a "text only" game with console application. I searched for ways to add sound to my application, but all of the solutions needed to include a path to the .wav file location. that would work, but I want to publish my game later on. and the file location matches only my PC, I mean, the user who downloads it can put the content file in a diffrent location than c:/Mygame/Content. what if he has multiple hard-drives? or a Disk on key? the program wont play the sound, because it cant find the sound. any ideas?

Store the WAV file in a location relative to your .exe file and use:
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location
to dynamically get the location of your .exe file at runtime and append it to the name of the .WAV file.

I solved it myself with these lines of code:
` string exe_location = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location;
exe_location = exe_location.Remove(exe_location.Length - 11);
int last_path_chat = exe_location.Length;
string sound_location = exe_location.Insert(last_path_chat, "DIE_ANTWOORD_-_UGLY_BOY.wav");
SoundPlayer.SoundLocation = sound_location;
SoundPlayer.PlaySync();

You should be able to have your console application reference the .wav format file through a relative path(something like "~/Content", and have it called in reference to the current directory of the application. Once that's done, you could build a simple installer(or just have the .wav file site in the program directory if you'll just be deploying your app via copy) to deploy your app.
I'm at work right now so can't do any quick testing, but if this question is still outstanding when I get home tonight I'll mock something up and post it here.

How can I get the file path for a file I only know the name of? C#

So I'm making a Tic Tac Toe application and have created a Text file linked to the program to hold the following information:
the name
the time took to win
the difficulty
I know the timer is redundant for a quick game like Tic Tac Toe but I'll use it in the future for other programs.
My question is how can I find the full path of the file while only knowing the name of the file?
I want to do this using the program so it can be transferred to any computer and still be able to access the file without the user having to input it.
The code I've tried is:
string file_name = Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, "Tic Tac Toe\\HighScores.txt");
But this just looks in the Debug folder, where the file isn't located. The application is entirely a console application.

Try to dedicate the file in a fixed sub directory:
\TicTacToe.exe
\settings\settings.cfg
So the path is dependent of your executable file.
You'll fetch the directory by calling Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()
You can set a desired directory by setting Environment.CurrentDirectory
A common way to handle this case is the one described above.
Another would be to use user specifiy directories like the %appdata% path and create a dedicated directory there.
%appdata%\TicTacToe\settings.cfg
Everytime your application starts it should lookup the folder %appdata%\TicTacToe\
If it is present, your application has been executed with this user.
If not, just create a new one, so we know it's the first run.
You can get the %appdata% path by calling
Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData)
Example of what i would have done
private void setUp(){
string filename = "settings.cfg";
string dir = "TicTacToe";
string appdata =Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData);
string fullpath = Path.Combine(Path.Combine(appdata,dir),filename);
//check if file exists, more accurate than just looking for the folder
if(File.Exists(fullpath )){
//read the file and process its content
}else{
Directory.CreateDirectory(Path.Combine(appdata,dir)); // will do nothing if directory exists, but then we have a bug: no file, but directory available
using (FileStream fs = File.Create(fullpath))
{
Byte[] info = new UTF8Encoding(true).GetBytes("This is some text in the file.");
// Add some information to the file.
fs.Write(info, 0, info.Length);
}
}
}
Hope it helped.

Perhaps have a configuration file for your application and store the directory name in there.
An old example from MS, but should still be applicable...
How to store and retrieve custom information from an application configuration file by using Visual C#

how to create sqlite database in windows store app located at a specific folder

Need help, I can't seem to access any other .sqlite database if its not located in the apps localfolder. Every tutorial I look at they always use
Path.Combine(Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.Current.LocalFolder.Path, "Example.sqlite");
I tried this:
const string testing = #"C:\Users\***\AppData\Local\Packages\*************\LocalState";
this.DBPath = Path.Combine(testing, "Example.sqlite");
using (var db = new SQLite.SQLiteConnection(this.DBPath))
{
db.CreateTable<Customer>();
}
and it worked. but when I change it to:
const string testing = #"C:\Databases";
It can't open the database even if I copied the database from the local folder of the app.
Any suggestions ? I'm still trying to learn.

You can't access the C: drive for windows store apps. It's part of the store's sandbox. Each app is limited to which files and folders can be viewed. If you have a local database file you need to access, define the file as content in your app and access it using the path "ms-appx:///..."

use file picker to select which folder you want to save the db file.
refer this article:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh967755.aspx?cs-save-lang=1&cs-lang=csharp#code-snippet-1

How to get path to file in winforms application

How can I get the path of a file on my computer or on the local area network.
I would to show a window that allows me to browse the file system when I click a button, and I want to select a file and get the path to the file. How can I do this?
P.S. I'm not looking to upload the file; I just want to get the path.

The web application is running on the server, and you don't have access to the client file system at all. Can you imagine how much of a vulnerability that would be? I know I don't want the sites I visit inspecting my file system...
EDIT: Question is for a WinForms application
For a WinForms application, you can use the OpenFileDialog, and extract the path with something like this:
If you're looking for the file path:
string path = OpenFileDialog1.FileName; //output = c:\folder\file.txt
If you're looking for the directory path:
string path = Path.GetDirectoryName(OpenFileDialog1.FileName); //output = c:\folder
In general, the System.IO.Path class has a lot of useful features for retrieving and manipulating path information.

To do this in VB.NET use the FolderBrowserDialog.

Due to security restrictions browsers include for user safety, you can't manipulate the client file system directly. You can only use to let them pick a file, and even then it only sends the filename, not the whole path.
The FileSystem API in HTML5 allows for file manipulation, but only within a sandbox for your site specifically, not browsing across the network or other files on the client system.
Instead, provide your users easy steps on how they should use My Computer (or whatever equivalent on other OS's) to navigate to the file and copy & paste the path into a simple text input box.

Have you taken a look at the Path class from System.IO ?

Accessing Text File in Non-Admin mode

I have a text file in Program Files. I cannot write it from a C# application while running in non-admin mode.
I am using this snippet
TextReader read = new StreamReader("C:\Program Files\......\link");
It is throwing an error that the access to the file is denied, however I can read it!
Thanks

Access to a file can be different for reading and writing. As a non-admin, it's normal to be able to read files in Program Files, but not be able to write them.
If the file is a setting for the current user, you should put it in a folder under the AppData folder. You can find the AppData folder's location by calling Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData))
If the file is a setting for all users on the computer, use Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonApplicationData))
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.environment.specialfolder.aspx for a list of other possible special folder locations.

Non-admin users don't have write access to files in C:\Program Files by default. If you want to write to a file that is accessible to all users, you should create it in C:\ProgramData.

In .net there is a class File
through which you can use the method
File.read(file path)
this return a string
so you can easily manage it
it also works in a non admin mode