Develop Reference

How to get a file full path in c# with Path.GetFullPath

I am trying to get the full path a file by its name only.
I have tried to use :
string fullPath = Path.GetFullPath("excelTest");
but it returns me an incorrect path (something with my project path).
I have read somewhere here a comment which says to do the following:
var dir = Environment.SpecialFolder.ProgramFilesX86;
var path = Path.Combine(dir.ToString(), "excelTest.csv");
but I do not know where the file is saved , therefore I do not know its environment.
can someone help me how to get the full path of a file only by its name?

The first snippet (with Path.GetFullPath) does exactly what you want. It returns something with your project path because the program EXE file is located in the project\Bin\Debug path, which is therefore the "current directory".
If you want to search for a file on a drive, you can use Directory.GetFiles, which will recursively search for a file in a directory given a name pattern.
This returns all xml-files recursively :
var allFiles = Directory.GetFiles(path, "*.xml", SearchOption.AllDirectories);
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143316%28v=vs.100%29.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143448.aspx#Y252
https://stackoverflow.com/a/9830162/2196124

I guess you're trying to find file (like in windows search), right ?
I'd look into this question - you will find all files that has that string in their filename, and from there you can return full filepath.
var fileList = new DirectoryInfo(#"c:\").GetFiles("*excelTest*", SearchOption.AllDirectories);
And then just use foreach to do you manipulations, e.g.
foreach(string file in fileList)
{
// MessageBox.Show(file);
}

What you're looking for is Directory.GetFiles(), you can read up on it here. The gist of it is, you'll pass in the file path and the file name, and you'll get a string array back. In this instance, you can assume top level with C:\. It should be noted, that if nothing is found, the string array will be empty.

You have passed a relative file name to Path.GetFullPath. Microsoft documentation states:
If path is a relative path, GetFullPath returns a fully qualified path that can be based on the current drive and current directory. The current drive and current directory can change at any time as an application executes. As a result, the path returned by this overload cannot be determined in advance.
You cannot get the same full path name from a relative path unless your current directory is the same each time you invoke the function.

Get absolute path from relative path c#

I have a file in a folder somewhere on my computer and I have a second file where the relative path to the first file is noticed.
Now I want to figure out the absolute path.
GetFullPath doesn't work because the second file is not in the directory where the program runs.
Is there an opportunity to say from which directory the "GetFullPath" function should start, to get the right absolute path?

You can use the static methods of Path to calculate the resulting path:
string fullPathToSecondFile = "c:\\test\\subtestsecond\\secondfile.txt";
string relativePath = "..\\subtestfirst\\firstfile.txt";
string fullPathToFirstFile = Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(Path.GetDirectoryName(fullSecondPath), relativePath));
This results in c:\test\subtestfirst\firstfile.txt
What happens is that you combine a relative path to a absolute one. This results in c:\test\subtestsecond\..\subtestfirst\firstfile.txt.
In the second step Path.GetFullPath() normalizes the string to the result shown above.

Getting the parentDirectory of a file in a unc path c# 2010

I need to identify first is this a UNCPath if so get the file directory
Is there a method to identify if a path is a UNC Path?
How do I get the file's parent.Parent.directory?
\\MyServer\\MySharedDrive\\MyDirectory\\MySubDirectory\\Myfile.csv
Wanted result and should work however deep
\\MyServer\\MySharedDrive\\MyDirectory
so that I can save another file to the above directory.
I guess I cannot do
Path.Combine("\\MyServer\\MySharedDrive\\MyDirectory",myNewFile.csv)
Any Suggestions?
Many thanks

To get parent directory and then creating a new path you can do:
string path = "\\MyServer\\MySharedDrive\\MyDirectory\\MySubDirectory\\Myfile.csv";
DirectoryInfo directory = new DirectoryInfo(Path.GetDirectoryName(path));
string finalPath = Path.Combine(directory.Parent.FullName, "myNewFile.csv"
To check if the path is UNC check this post.

From MSDN
Most members of the Path class do not interact with the file system
and do not verify the existence of the file specified by a path string
Again from MSDN on Path class
In members that accept a path, the path can refer to a file or just a
directory. The specified path can also refer to a relative path or a
Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path for a server and share name
Said that, you could write
string myUNCPath = #"\\MyServer\MySharedDrive\MyDirectory\MySubDirectory\Myfile.csv";
string myParent = Path.GetDirectoryName(Path.GetDirectoryName(myUNCPath));
string finalFile = Path.Combine(#"\\MyServer\MySharedDrive\MyDirectory","myNewFile.csv");
As a safety check you should execute two separate calls to Path.GetDirectoryName because if you have only one level deep of subdirectory then the result of Path.GetDirectoryName will be null
For example, if the initial UNC path is
string myUNCPath = #"\\MyServer\MySharedDrive\MyDirectory\Myfile.csv";
string myParent = Path.GetDirectoryName(myUNCPath);
if(!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(myParent))
{
myParent = Path.GetDirectoryName(myParent);
if(!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(myParent))
{
string finalFile = Path.Combine(myParent, "myNewFile.csv");
.....
}
}
For the part relative to your first question, the discovery of an UNC path is relatively easy.
See this article on Windows Dev Center about Paths and Files
Console.WriteLine(IsUNCPath(myUNCPath));
......
bool IsUNCPath(string pathToCheck)
{
return pathToCheck.StartsWith(#"\\");
}

How to copy an image to application folder?

I already know how to browse for an image using open file dialog. So let's say we already got the path :
string imagePath = "Desktop/Images/SampleImage.jpg";
I want to copy that file, into my application folder :
string appFolderPath = "SampleApp/Images/";
How to copy the given image to the appFolderPath programmatically?
Thank you.

You could do something like this:
var path = Path.Combine(
System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory,
"Images",
fileName);
File.Copy(imagePath, path);
where fileName is the actual name of the file only (including the extension).
UPDATE: the Path.Combine method will cleanly combine strings into a well-formed path. For example, if one of the strings does have a backslash and the other doesn't it won't matter; they are combined appropriately.
The System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, per MSDN, does the following:
Gets the base directory that the assembly resolver uses to probe for assemblies.
That's going to be the executable path you're running in; so the path in the end (and let's assume fileName is test.txt) would be:
{path_to_exe}\Images\test.txt

string path="Source imagepath";
File.Copy(System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory+"\\Images", path);
\ System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory is to provide path of the application folder

How to specify non exact paths in C#

I currently have a statement as follows:
string dir = "C:\\Users\\Limited\\Desktop\\";
Although I would like it to be specified as a directory within the work directroy e.g.
workingpath/myfolder
Can this be done?

I assumed you could just use a relative path, i.e. "myfolder", but you can get and use the application path and append the subdirectory:
string appPath = Path.GetDirectoryName(Application.ExecutablePath);
http://www.csharp-examples.net/get-application-directory/

Just use the relative path to the application.

Unless your path begins with a (drive letter or back)slash¹, it is interpreted as relative to the current working directory. So "myfolder\\" would be a relative directory.
¹In MS-DOS, and emulated by cmd.exe, it's possible to have a path relative to the current directory on another drive.

const string subDir = "test_dir";
string appPath = Path.GetDirectoryName(Application.ExecutablePath);
string targetPath = Path.Combine(appPath, subDir);