Develop Reference

Revit API: Use String as Button Assembly Name with Current Path

I'm not entirely sure at all why this is happening...
So I have a ExternalCommand and an application for making a ribbon tab and button. These two programs are in the same solution and under the same namespace, which allows me to have fewer files to deal with. When I create a button for my command, I want to put in the current path of the application that is currently running. I do this with Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() + \AddInsAll\Ribbon17.dll (where AddInsAll is the folder and Ribbon17 is the dll, obviously). I use # when necessary to avoid escape sequences. This string contains the exact assembly name needed, but Revit tells me "Assembly does not exist." If I replace this String variable with the hard coded C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Revit\Addins\2017\AddInsAll\Ribbon17.dll it works. I want it obviously more robust than that. My code will be below, thanks in advance.
FYI: I have a TaskDialog showing when it first runs, and the fullPath that it returns is exacly the same as the hard coded path. I have to do a replace (Program Files to ProgramData) due to some weird bug with the get directory. Also, I add "\AddInsAll\Ribbon17.dll" to the end of the string because the CurrentDirectory goes only to Addins\2017. Finally, if you think the problem is due to the #'s, I have already tried putting it and taking it off of variables and none of the attempts work. But if you think of them is the problem, I welcome the advice. Thanks.
public class RibApp : IExternalApplication
{
public Result OnStartup(Autodesk.Revit.UI.UIControlledApplication application)
{
// Create a custom ribbon tab
String tabName = "Add-Ins";
String fakeFullPath = #Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() + #"\AddInsAll\Ribbon17.dll";
String fullPath = fakeFullPath.Replace(#"\Program Files\", #"\ProgramData\");
TaskDialog.Show("Hi", #fullPath);
application.CreateRibbonTab(tabName);
//Create buttons and panel
// Create two push buttons
PushButtonData CommandButton = new PushButtonData("Command17", "Command",
#fullPath, "Ribbon17.Command");

I suggest you skip the # and replace each backslash \ by a forward slash /.
KISS!
Better still, use an approach similar to the CreateRibbonTab implementation in the HoloLens Escape Path Waypoint JSON Exporter.

WebApi - How to include relative paths for included App_Data XML files?

Question Background:
I have a WebApi controller who's logic code relies on reading data contained in a number of XML files. These XML files have been included in the App_Data folder of the WebApi project.
The Issue:
I'm trying to use the relative path of the XML files in the following way:
[System.Web.Http.HttpGet]
public string CallerOne()
{
string docOne = #"~\AppData\DocOne.xml";
string poll = #"~\AppData\Poll.xml";
var response = _Caller.CallService(docOne, poll);
return ConvertXmlToJson(response);
}
When running the WebApi code and calling the Url to the CallerOne method I receive the following error:
An exception of type 'System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException'
occurred in System.Xml.dll but was not handled in user code
Additional information: Could not find a part of the path
'C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS Express\~\AppData\FPS.xml'.
I also want to eventually publish this to Azure and include these files.
How can I use the relative path to read in the XML files in the App_Data folder?

Ended up finding the answer.
The following is needed to read the relative paths in a WebApi project:
var fullPath = System.Web.Hosting.HostingEnvironment.MapPath(#"~/App_Data/yourXmlFile.xml");

As jdweng inferred several months back, Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("AppData") would seem to be the preferred method. The OP's auto-accepted answer and that give quite different results. For example, using both of those in my project, I get:
C:\\Projects\\PlatypusReports\\PlatypusReports\\App_Data\\yourXmlFile.xml
...for the OP's long-winded code, namely this:
var fullPath = System.Web.Hosting.HostingEnvironment.MapPath(#"~/App_Data/yourXmlFile.xml");
...and this:
C:\\Users\\cshannon\\AppData\\Roaming
...for jdweng's code, to wit:
string appData = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("AppData");
OTOH, this code:
string appDataFolder = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/");
returns:
C:\\Projects\\PlatypusReports\\PlatypusReports\App_Data\
So it's very similar in results (if not methodology) to the first example above. I actually got it from a question I asked almost two years ago, which I had forgotten about.
I'm not positive if jdweng's approach would work as expected once the app is deployed on a server, but I have much more confidence in it than the other approaches.
Can anyone verify?
UPDATE
The accepted answer here has 237 upvotes at time of typing, so seems pretty reliable, albeit 6 years old (42 in dog years, which may be a good sign).

Your approach is fine. You just had some tpying error,
You wrote
string docOne = #"~\AppData\DocOne.xml";
But it should have been
string docOne = #"~\App_Data\DocOne.xml";

Calling RubyScript via IronRuby with command line parameters or arguments

We're pretty new to Ruby and very new to IronRuby so please bear with me. We're in C# trying to do something very simple. I've got a ruby script called doExtract.rb and I need to pass it a file called myfile.txt. We've copied all the files required into the /bin folder of the build and they run correctly when called via the command line.
var rubyRuntime = Ruby.CreateRuntime();
var rubyEngine = rubyRuntime.GetEngine("rb");
String fullPath = String.Format("{0} {1}", "doExtract.rb", "myfile.txt");
rubyEngine.ExecuteFile(fullPath);
gives me an error of "Illegal characters in path"
I've searched high & low on the t'interwebs and to no avail.
We've tried adding the search paths to the rubyEngine and using a full path to the myfile.txt but still get the error. If we call a simple ruby script with no parameters then it works fine. We've also tried with escaped slashed both backwards and forwards in the myfile.txt. I'm sure it'd something really stupid that we're not doing !
Any suggestions where we're going wrong ?
Thanks

HttpRequest.Url.AbsolutePath vs HttpRequest.Path in .NET

I've been using the HttpRequest class in some legacy code, and I've seen that sometimes the path part is obtained using HttpRequest.Path and some other times using HttpRequest.Uri.AbsolutePath.
I personally don't see any difference between both, but maybe I'm missing something.
Are the results of HttpRequest.Path and HttpRequest.Uri.AbsolutePath always 100% equivalent?

Looking at the Reference Source for the Uri, it is built using the Path, so they should be equivalent:
_url = BuildUrl(() => Path);

Yes. They are one and the same. I just run a couple of quick tests and found that the they both are the same. Some research over it showed me that, httprequest.path is an virtual path to the current request which should be exactly the same as absolute path of the URI from that request.

Yes, they should
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.httprequest.path(v=vs.110).aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.uri.absolutepath(v=vs.110).aspx
The HttpRequest.Path returns an absolute path

Image path file not found

I have spent quite a while trying to solve this problem, but to no avail. I have searched stackoverflow as well as Google and have not been able to resolve my (seemingly) simple problem.
I am getting a FileNotFoundException in the following line:
Image.FromFile("\\Resources\\Icons\\key-icon.png");
The folders and image are really there, and I can't see what the problem is.

You should consider that it is started from "yourproject/bin/Release" so you need to go up 2 directories. Do this:
Image.FromFile("..\\..\\Resources\\Icons\\key-icon.png");

Try using an absolute path not a relative one... i.e.
Image.FromFile(Server.MapPath(#"~\Resources\Icons\key-icon.png"));

Image.FromFile(Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory,
#"Resources\\Icons\\key-icon.png"))
Base-directory Combine your file-name

You may be missing a leading ".":
Image.FromFile(".\\Resources\\Icons\\key-icon.png");

Internally, Image.FromFile uses File.Exists to check whether the file exists. This method returns false when:
the file does not exist (makes sense)
the current process identity does not have permission to read the file
It may be that the second option is your problem.
And another possibility: is Resources a network share? In that case you should use the following:
Image.FromFile("\\\\Resources\\Icons\\key-icon.png");

For this case I discovered that sikuli does not automatically detect the root folder of the project. What you should do for this case is specify the folder using the command System.getProperty("user.dir");
import org.sikuli.script.*;
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Screen s = new Screen();
try{
String pathYourSystem = System.getProperty("user.dir") + "\\";
s.click(pathYourSystem + "imgs/spotlight.png");
//s.wait(pathYourSystem + "imgs/spotlight-input.png");
//s.click();
s.write("hello world#ENTER.");
}
catch(FindFailed e){
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}