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C# How to get current directory path

Scenario :
I've created a library project which provides interface to installer(exe created using install shield).I want to check whether a particular file exists in the installer folder.
I've tried following :
1). Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location
// Throws "Object reference not set to an instance of an object"
2). new Uri(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase).LocalPath
// return :
C:\Windows\Microsoft.Net\assembly\GAC_32\mscorlib\v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\mscorlib.dll
3). Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location
// returns empty string
4). AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
// returns "C:\Windows\syswow64\" irrespective of the actual path
Could anyone tell me how can I get directory path from where the installer is being executed?

You can use
Directory.GetCurrentDirectory();
to get current directory path
import System.IO

I will answer my own question, It's not possible to get current path from library project. You'll have to get it from installer. There is no other way.
Thank you.

If you want to get the folder where your exe is resting
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
this returns the whole path to the Folder which contains the exe. From there on you can add your folders manually
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + #"MyFolder1\MyFolder2";

Assuming you are running an MSI-based install built by InstallShield:
The problem you're having is because of the way those calls work. You're implementing this in an external Dll, and Dlls don't have their own current directory - they have the current directory of the process that's calling into the Dll. In this case you're being called from an msiexec.exe process (assuming you are doing this in a custom action) so you'll get msiexec.exe's current directory.
Apart from that, some other observations:
You don't say exactly when you are calling your code, but it might be before the user has chosen the installation folder, so the search doesn't really help.
InstallShield probably provides support for a file search. If this is an MSI setup it definitely does.
Installs hardly ever look for files in an install folder because there is rarely a good reason. If you need the file, add it to your install, or if it's a redistributable then add the standard redist package, maybe a merge module. If that file belongs to another setup, what will you do if that product is uninstalled? Are you checking the version to see if it's compatible with your application? In general, all setups install the files they need and shared files are backwards compatible if they are used by several different products.

Try this one, it always works for me:
Environment.CurrentDirectory
use above property as follow.
string currentDirectory = Path.GetDirectoryName(Environment.CurrentDirectory);

If you want that path in the InstallShield use this
Setup.exe - Use the SETUPEXEDIR property
http://www.installshield.com/news/newsletter/0206-articles/SetupExeDir.asp.
Depending on version of installshield you are using try different properties
1. SRCDIR
2. SETUPEXEDIR
3. SUPPORTDIR
If you have a C# code to read preperties use MsiGetProperty like below
MsiGetProperty( hMSI, "SETUPEXEDIR", Value, Size )

string assemblyPath = Context.Parameters["assemblyPath"];
int i = assemblyPath.Length - 1;
while (assemblyPath[i] != '\\') --i;
string folder = assemblyPath.Substring(0, i);

How do I keep my application's working directory consistent even when being run from a batch file? [duplicate]

I see that there are some ways to get the application folder path:
Application.StartupPath
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()
Environment.CurrentDirectory
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase)
System.IO.Path.GetDirectory(Application.ExecutablePath)
What is the best way depending on the situation?

AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory is probably the most useful for accessing files whose location is relative to the application install directory.
In an ASP.NET application, this will be the application root directory, not the bin subfolder - which is probably what you usually want. In a client application, it will be the directory containing the main executable.
In a VSTO 2005 application, it will be the directory containing the VSTO managed assemblies for your application, not, say, the path to the Excel executable.
The others may return different directories depending on your environment - for example see #Vimvq1987's answer.
CodeBase is the place where a file was found and can be a URL beginning with http://. In which case Location will probably be the assembly download cache. CodeBase is not guaranteed to be set for assemblies in the GAC.
UPDATE
These days (.NET Core, .NET Standard 1.3+ or .NET Framework 4.6+) it's better to use AppContext.BaseDirectory rather than AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory. Both are equivalent, but multiple AppDomains are no longer supported.

Application.StartupPathand 7. System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Application.ExecutablePath) - Is only going to work for Windows Forms application
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)
Is going to give you something like: "C:\\Windows\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework\\v4.0.30319\\Temporary ASP.NET Files\\legal-services\\e84f415e\\96c98009\\assembly\\dl3\\42aaba80\\bcf9fd83_4b63d101" which is where the page that you are running is.
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory for web application could be useful and will return something like "C:\\hg\\Services\\Services\\Services.Website\\" which is base directory and is quite useful.
System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() and 5. Environment.CurrentDirectory
will get you location of where the process got fired from - so for web app running in debug mode from Visual Studio something like "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\IIS Express"
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase)
will get you location where .dll that is running the code is, for web app that could be "file:\\C:\\hg\\Services\\Services\\Services.Website\\bin"
Now in case of for example console app points 2-6 will be directory where .exe file is.
Hope this saves you some time.

Note that not all of these methods will return the same value. In some cases, they can return the same value, but be careful, their purposes are different:
Application.StartupPath
returns the StartupPath parameter (can be set when run the application)
System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()
returns the current directory, which may or may not be the folder where the application is located. The same goes for Environment.CurrentDirectory. In case you are using this in a DLL file, it will return the path of where the process is running (this is especially true in ASP.NET).

For a web application, to get the current web application root directory, generally call by web page for the current incoming request:
HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath();
System.Web.Hosting.HostingEnvironment.ApplicationPhysicalPath;
Above code description

I started a process from a Windows Service over the Win32 API in the session from the user which is actually logged in (in Task Manager session 1 not 0). In this was we can get to know, which variable is the best.
For all 7 cases from the question above, the following are the results:
Path1: C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram
Path2: C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram
Path3: C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram\
Path4: C:\Windows\system32
Path5: C:\Windows\system32
Path6: file:\C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram
Path7: C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram
Perhaps it's helpful for some of you, doing the same stuff, when you search the best variable for your case.

In my experience, the best way is a combination of these.
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase
Will give you the bin folder
Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()
Works fine on .Net Core but not .Net and will give you the root directory of the project
System.AppContext.BaseDirectory and AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
Works fine in .Net but not .Net core and will give you the root directory of the project
In a class library that is supposed to target.Net and .Net core I check which framework is hosting the library and pick one or the other.

To get the path to .exe for simple desktop applications I use
Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location)
which returns path to .exe.
Also be aware that for several domains the .exe for default domain will be returned, or the .exe executed by first call of ExecuteAssembly(String) and that if the entry is unmanaged, the null will be returned.
Be careful with GetExecutingAssembly(), naming was confusing for me, as I have expected to get the .exe, but it returns the .dll or .exe, where the code is placed, so in case of GetExecutingAssembly() placed in library it returns the library.

I have used this one successfully
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainModule.FileName)
It works even inside linqpad.

Root directory:
DriveInfo cDrive = new DriveInfo(System.Environment.CurrentDirectory);
var driverPath = cDrive.RootDirectory;

If you know to get the root directory:
string rootPath = Path.GetPathRoot(Application.StartupPath)

this one System.IO.Path.GetDirectory(Application.ExecutablePath) changed to System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Application.ExecutablePath)

What is the difference between these ways of getting current directory?

They all give the same result, the location of folder that contains the exe that is being executed. I am sure there are no good or bad methods in the .net BCL. They are all appropriate in particular circumstances. Which one is appropriate for which scenario?
var appBaseDir = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;
var currentDir = Environment.CurrentDirectory;
var dir = Directory.GetCurrentDirectory();
var path = Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);

They all give the same result
They certainly don’t. currentDir and dir both give you the current working directory – i.e. by default the directory your executable was run from (but it can be changed during the execution).
By contrast, appBaseDir and path get the directory which contains the executing assembly’s file.
To illustrate how they differ, consider that you have an executable which sits in C:\bar\baz.exe. Now I can execute the application by entering the following chain of commands in a terminal:
$ md C:\foo
$ cd C:\foo
$ ..\bar\baz.exe
Now the current working directory is C:\foo but the application’s base directory is C:\bar. There exist analogous means of setting the working directory for other methods of launching an application (e.g. via a shortcut icon or programmatically, such as via Process.Start).
Still, the framework provides different ways of accessing this information:
Environment.CurrentDirectory quite directly conveys the meaning that the execution environment (an environment variable) is queried. Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() may actually do the same internally (I have no idea) but it encapsulates this, and rather focuses on providing the user with a logical API for querying information about directories.
AppDomain.CurrentDomain has information about the current AppDomain (roughly, the executable). Part of that information is, logically, the AppDomain’s path. By contrast, System.Reflection.Assembly gives you general information about assembles – these represent any kind of binary objects in .NET, including DLLs and EXEs. GetExecutingAssembly in particular returns the currently executed assembly. And you can get its path again by querying its Location property, which gives the physical path of an assembly file.

Consider the example above
The myTest.exe file contains the entry point and is at located at D:\myTest.exe. This exe calls via reflection a method in an assembly in F:\. This assembly contains all the find directory code.
In the command prompt I have my current directory set to C:\
Here are the results
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
D:\
Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)
F:\
Environment.CurrentDirectory and Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()
C:\

AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory will give you the directory the application is running in.
Environment.CurrentDirectory & Directory.GetCurrentDirectory can change during the execution of an application. You can see the behavior if you get the value at the start of execution, then use something like OpenFileDialog, then then get the value again. You will notice that the value will have changed to where the OpenFileDialog was pointing.

I found with .net 5 that if the application is published as a self-contained single-file EXE, all of these well-known methods to get the EXE location return an empty string:
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase
typeof(Program).Assembly.ManifestModule.FullyQualifiedName
However this does work to get the containing folder path:
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory

C# Executable Executing directory

What is the best method of getting the path the C# executable is running from?
I need to use it for temp folders etc and currently I'm using:
Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase)
But I then need to do a:
.Replace("file:\\", string.Empty)
as this gives me a URI type path (i.e. has file:\ at the start) which is unusable with some other parts of my code.

Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)

Not an accurate answer to your question, however I would suggest to have a look at:
Path.GetTempFileName()
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.path.gettempfilename.aspx

Try with Environment.CurrentDirectory
This returns the folder of your currently working directory.

For temp folders etc. you should NOT use the executing directory for security reasons...
MS has something built-in for this:
You can use ApplicationData (for roaming users) or LocalApplicationData (for non-roaming users) or CommonApplicationData (for non-user-related things) from Environment.SpecialFolder - anything (files+folders) you create within those folders is already setup with the needed permissions/rights for the user running you app - nobody else (except perhaps Administrator) can go there... to make it even more secure you could encrypt data you put there...
see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.environment.specialfolder.aspx

Try:
Application.StartupPath
It should return the path without the executable filename.

If the assembly has been shadow copied then Assembly.Location will point to the shadow copy of the dll.
If you want to know the location of the build output directory use Assembly.CodeBase, i.e.:
Path.GetDirectoryName(new Uri(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase).LocalPath)
Useful if you want to access other resources from the directory of the assembly for example when running test suite.

.NET Core 3.0 introduced IHostEnvironment.ContentRootPath.
.NET Core 2.1 introduced IHostingEnvironment.ContentRootPath (obsolete since Core 3.0).
Personally I find that these are what I generally need: the place where included content is located.
I can confirm that IHostEnvironment.ContentRootPath also returns the desired result when running as a unit test. (Tested with xUnit, but the test framework should not matter.)

For self-contained single file applications (available since .NET Core 3.0) you should use System.AppContext.BaseDirectory. The assembly location will be empty so you can't rely on it.
Example
using System.Reflection;
Console.WriteLine($"AppContext.BaseDirectory: {AppContext.BaseDirectory}");
Console.WriteLine($"Assembly.Location: {Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)}");
Console.ReadLine();
Output (Not published):
AppContext.BaseDirectory: C:\[..]\bin\Debug\net6.0-windows\win-x64\
Assembly.Location: C:\[..]\bin\Debug\net6.0-windows\win-x64
Output (Published / Single File):
AppContext.BaseDirectory: C:\[..]\bin\Debug\net6.0-windows\win-x64\publish\
Assembly.Location:

string executableLocation = Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);
string txtfile = Path.Combine(executableLocation, "example.txt");

How to get to app-relative subdirectory in .net windows app?

I have an application that contains a sub folder that contain xml file ,that is use as a database now i want take the path of the xml file at run time ,how can i achieve this in window application?
I know how it does in asp.net using Server.MapPath but i want this is same in windows application
please help
thanks in advance .

Use Aplication.ExecutablePath property when am XML document and executable are reside in the same directory.

I think the recommended way in Windows is to use the Application.StartupPath property.
And with Path.Combine you can have your xml file path Server.MapPath-style like this:
var appPath = Application.StartupPath;
var xmlPath = Path.Combine(appPath, "data/my_db.xml");
// xmlPath now points to app-relative data/my_db.xml file
...

A nuanced answer:
The best way to access data would be to put it in Application.CommonAppDataPath or Application.UserAppDataPath so that it does not depend on the application's installed path. However, there are many reasons why you might need to avoid this.
To answer your question:
If the application is a standard forms application deployed to the client's machine by an installer or XCopy deployment, then the path to the executable is Application.ExecutablePath
If the application is Click-Once deployed, then I would not recommend using the above since the app's path is obscured, shadow-copied and put in the sandbox. You can use ApplicationDeployment.IsNetworkDeployed to test for click-once deployment then ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment.ActivationUri to get the URI that the application was launched from. Your app-relative file will be on that web server; you will always be able to download it.
of course in click-once deployent it would be better to tag the file as Data in which case it would be accessible through ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment.DataDirectory
if the application is a web app, then the Application class is useless. In this case you should use Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location This works because currently executing assembly for a web app is almost always in the web app's /bin directory.
For a "portable" assembly where you don't have an installer, and for rare cases where you don't want to use the Application class, use Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location This works because it figures out what the entry point assembly is (your application) and uses that location. This is reliable because assemblies that your entry assembly load don't have to be in the same directory as the entry assembly.

You can get the directory of the currently executing assembly using
System.Runtime.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location
from there you can get to your subdirectory.