How can I get the application's path in a .NET

Question

How do I find the application's path in a console application?

In Windows Forms, I can use Application.StartupPath to find the current path, but this doesn't seem to be available in a console application.

Answer 1

You have two options for finding the directory of the application, which you chose will depend on your purpose.

// to get the location the assembly is executing from
//(not necessarily where the it normally resides on disk)
// in the case of the using shadow copies, for instance in NUnit tests, 
// this will be in a temp directory.
string path = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location;

//To get the location the assembly normally resides on disk or the install directory
string path = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase;

//once you have the path you get the directory with:
var directory = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(path);

Answer 2

For anyone interested in asp.net web apps. Here are my results of 3 different methods

protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  string p1 = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);
  string p2 = System.Web.Hosting.HostingEnvironment.ApplicationPhysicalPath;
  string p3 = this.Server.MapPath("");
  Console.WriteLine("p1 = " + p1);
  Console.WriteLine("p2 = " + p2);
  Console.WriteLine("p3 = " + p3);
}

result

p1 = C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\a897dd66\ec73ff95\assembly\dl3\ff65202d\29daade3_5e84cc01
p2 = C:\inetpub\SBSPortal_staging\
p3 = C:\inetpub\SBSPortal_staging

the app is physically running from "C:\inetpub\SBSPortal_staging", so the first solution is definitely not appropriate for web apps.

Answer 3

I use this if the exe is supposed to be called by double clicking it

var thisPath = System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory();

Answer 4

I didn't see anyone convert the LocalPath provided by .Net Core reflection into a usable System.IO path so here's my version.

public static string GetApplicationRoot()
{
   var exePath = new Uri(System.Reflection.
   Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase).LocalPath;

   return new FileInfo(exePath).DirectoryName;

}

This will return the full "C:\xxx\xxx" formatted path to where your code is.

Answer 5

Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location or Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location

Use in combination with System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName() to get only the directory.

The paths from GetEntryAssembly() and GetExecutingAssembly() can be different, even though for most cases the directory will be the same.

With GetEntryAssembly() you have to be aware that this can return null if the entry module is unmanaged (ie C++ or VB6 executable). In those cases it is possible to use GetModuleFileName from the Win32 API:

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
public static extern int GetModuleFileName(HandleRef hModule, StringBuilder buffer, int length);

Answer 6

Probably a bit late but this is worth a mention:

Environment.GetCommandLineArgs()[0];

Or more correctly to get just the directory path:

System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Environment.GetCommandLineArgs()[0]);

Edit:

Quite a few people have pointed out that GetCommandLineArgs is not guaranteed to return the program name. See The first word on the command line is the program name only by convention. The article does state that "Although extremely few Windows programs use this quirk (I am not aware of any myself)". So it is possible to 'spoof' GetCommandLineArgs, but we are talking about a console application. Console apps are usually quick and dirty. So this fits in with my KISS philosophy.