Develop Reference

C# winforms get nth folders from path

I've got an absolute path available to me. Say: C:/Program/CoreFiles/Folder1/Folder2/File.txt.
I need to copy that file to C:/Program/Projects/ProjectName/ but it needs to keep Folder1/Folder2/File.txt intact. So the end result should be C:/Program/Projects/ProjectName/Folder1/Folder2/File.txt.
My first attempt at solving this was to try and get the relative path between 2 absolute paths. Found Path.GetRelativePath(string, string) which obviously didn't help as it wasn't meant for WinForms. It would mess up anyway as the final result would be C:/Program/Projects/ProjectName/CoreFiles/Folder1/Folder2/File.txt.
The target directory is empty and I don't know the relative path to copy beforehand other than somehow getting that info out of the absolute path. Since File.Copy won't create folders that don't exist yet, I need to create them first. So how do I get the path that leads up to the file from the CoreFiles directory out of the absolute path?
The only working solution I can come up with is using regex to just replace CoreFiles with Projects/ProjectName in the path string and work with that. But that somehow seems the wrong approach.

Since you can't use Path.GetRelativePath. I suggest looking at another answer that describes how to do this yourself.
Like here...
How to get relative path from absolute path
Using the method in that answer, you can do the rest of your task as shown below.
string sourcePath = "C:/Program/CoreFiles/Folder1/Folder2/File.txt";
string sourceRoot = "C:/Program/CoreFiles/";
string destinationRoot = "C:/Program/Projects/ProjectName/";
// Use built-in .NET Path.GetRelativePath if you can. Otherwise use a custom function. Like here https://stackoverflow.com/a/340454/1812944
string relativePath = MakeRelativePath(sourceRoot, sourcePath);
// Combine the paths, and make the directory separators all the same.
string destinationPath = Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(destinationRoot, relativePath));
// Create nested folder structure for your files.
Directory.CreateDirectory(Path.GetDirectoryName(destinationPath));
// Copy the file over.
File.Copy(sourcePath, destinationPath);

Folder path before project

I am trying to get a folder path in my C drive that I did not want to hard code with my program.
I know that I can use string path = System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory; However its give me : C:\FACE\Camera\Camera\bin\Debug . Which I want to only have C:\FACE\ as I want to initialise something in the FACE folder but outside of my Camera folder. I do not wish to hardcode the file path. Is it possible to do it? Thanks for the help!

You could use the method Directory.GetParent for this purpose:
Directory.GetParent("here you will pass you path");
Update
For your case, you could take that you want as below:
string projectPath = Directory.GetParent(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()).Parent.FullName;
string solutionPath = Directory.GetParent(projectPath).Parent.FullName;
string basePath = Directory.GetParent(solutionPath).FullName;
The variable basePath contains that you want.

System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory always returns the path of executable assembly.You can use DTE if you are using web application

Copy and paste a file programmaticaly

Question Background:
I need to copy and paste (move) a file from one folder location to another.
Issue:
The File.Copy method of System.IO requires the that both parameters are of known file locations. I only know one file path location - in this case localDevPath. localQAPath is the folder path where I want the copied file to be moved too.
string localDevPath = #"C:\Folder1\testFile.cs";
string localQaPath = #"C:\Folder2\";
File.Copy(localDevPath, localQaPath);
Can anyone tell me how to go about carrying out this 'copy and paste' method I'm trying to implement.

string localDevPath = #"C:\Folder1\testFile.cs";
string localQaPath = #"C:\Folder2\";
FileInfo fi = new FileInfo(localDevPath);
fi.MoveTo(Path.Combine(localQaPath, fi.Name));

Assuming that these are user-provided paths and you can't simply include the filename in the second path, then you need to extract the last path element from localDevPath and then add it to localQaPath. You could probably do that with Path.GetFilename.

I'm guessing the issue here is that the filename is variable, in which case, you could do something like this to extract the filename from the full path of localDevPath:
string localDevPath = #"C:\Folder1\testFile.cs";
string localQaPath = #"C:\Folder2\";
string[] tokens = localDevPath.Split(#"\");
localQaPath += tokens[tokens.Length-1];
File.Copy(localDevPath, localQaPath);
Documentation on File.Copy is on MSDN. There is an overload that accepts a boolean, to allow overwriting if there is a naming conflict.

If what you want to do is move the file from one location to another, the method you are looking for is MoveTo. It is a method of the FileInfo class. There is a very complete example in the MSDN Library here: FileInfo.MoveTo Example

Read a file from an unknown location?

I have got this read file code from microsoft
#"C:\Users\computing\Documents\mikec\assignment2\task_2.txt"
That works fine when im working on it, but when i am to hand in this assignment my lecturer isn't going to have the same directory as me.
So i was wondering if there is a way to read it from just the file the program is held in?.
I was thinking i could add it as a resource but im not sure if that is the correct way for the assignment it is meant to allow in any file.
Thanks

You can skip the path - this will read file from the working directory of the program.
Just #"task_2.txt" will do.
UPDATE: Please note that method won't work in some circumstances. If your lecturer uses some automated runner (script, application whatsoever) to verify your app then #ken2k's solution will be much more robust.

If you want to read a file from the directory the program is in, then use
using System.IO;
...
string myFileName = "file.txt";
string myFilePath = Path.Combine(Application.StartupPath, myFileName);
EDIT:
More generic solution for non-winforms applications:
string myFilePath = Path.Combine(Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location), myFileName);

If it is a command line application, you should take the file name as a command line argument instead of using a fixed path. Something along the lines of;
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
if (args == null || args.Length != 1)
{
Console.WriteLine("Parameters are not ok, usage: ...");
return;
}
string filename = args[0];
...
...should let you get the filename from the command.

You could use the GetFolderPath method to get the documents folder of the current user:
Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments)
and to exemplify:
string myDocuments = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments);
string file = Path.Combine(myDocuments, #"mikec\assignment2\task_2.txt");
// TODO: do something with the file like reading it for example
string contents = File.ReadAllText(file);

Use the relative path.
you can put your file inside the folder where your application resides.
you can use Directory.GetCurrentDirectory().ToString() method to get the current folder of the application in. if you put your files inside a sub folder you can use
Directory.GetCurrentDirectory().ToString() + "\subfolderName\"
File.OpenRead(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory().ToString() + "\fileName.extension")
StreamReader file = new StreamReader(File.OpenRead(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory().ToString() + ""));
string fileTexts = file.ReadToEnd();

getting file name and moving it

string fName = Path.GetFileName(tempPaths[z]);
if (!File.Exists(subAch + fName))
{
File.Move(tempPaths[z], subAch + fName);
Console.WriteLine("moved!!! from " + tempPaths[z] + " tooooo ");
}
tempPaths is a list with all the image file paths. e.g. ./images/image4.jpg
subAch is a directory string.
I wish to get the file name of the file then move them to another directory. But with the code above i kept getting error: file is being used by other process.
Is there anyway which get the file name and move them? I have tried fileStream but was confused by it.
Please advice.
Thank you!

Your code should work just fine. You just need to figure out who is locking the files.
I'd put the code inside the if-block in a try-catch block to deal with the locked files.
I will also recommend you to use Path.Combine instead of dir + file.
One thing: you are checking if subAch + tempPaths[z] exists, yet you are copying to a different location; subAch + fName.

File is being used by another process means exactly that. Someone/something is already using the file, so can't move it. You can always catch the error and moving everything else?

I have use a non-ideal way to grab the file name and move the files to another place.
tempPaths.AddRange(Directory.GetFiles(rawStorePath, filter, SearchOption.AllDirectories));
The code above gets all the directories of all the files in the folder set. The outcome with be something like this. tempPaths is a List.
"./images/glass_numbers_5.jpg"
"./images/G.JPG"
"./images/E.JPG"
"./images/F.JPG"
"./images/glass_numbers_0.jpg"
"./images/C.JPG"
"./images/B.JPG"
"./images/A.JPG"
"./images/D.JPG"
"./images/glass_numbers_7.jpg"
then after i use a loop to grab the file names.
for (int i = 0; i < tempPaths.Count; i++)
{
//Getting the original names of the images
int pLength = rawStorePath.Length;
string something = tempPaths[i].Remove(0, pLength);
if (!_tfileName.ContainsKey(tempPaths[i]))
{ _tfileName.Add(tempPaths[i], something); }
}
rawStorePath is the path of the targeted path e.g.: ./images/
tempPath[i] e.g. : ./images/G.JPG
So with the length i remove the letters and get the file name back.
Please advice me for a ideal way to do this if there is any.
Thanks!