Change current working directory VS13?

Question

As stated in this post the working directory when I debug my SDL program is relative to the .vcproj instead of the .exe (which it should be IMO)

So I'm wondering if there's anyway I can change this, so when i press F5 the path will be relative to the .exe and not .vcproj? The current (relatively easy) workaround I'm using, is simply opening up the folder and starting program from there, but I would much rather prefer simply pressing F5.

Answer 1

The naive answer to your question is that you can set the Working Directory option in the Debugging configuration properties to $(TargetDir). The default setting is $(ProjectDir) and by default the project directory is not where the executable file is output. However, I do not recommend you take this option, as I explain below.

You are attempting to solve this the wrong way. Your fundamental problem is that you are assuming that the working directory is the same as directory which contains the executable file. There's no reason for that to be so, and you should not rely one it. You know that the files are in the same directory as the executable and so you should look there, rather than the working directory which is only sometimes, coincidentally, the same as the executable directory.

So, instead of relying on the invoker of the process setting up the working directory to your liking, make your program independent of the working directory. You state that you wish to work with files whose location you know relative to the executable directory. So there is the answer. Construct full paths to your files, using the directory which contains the executable as the base.

If you need to find out the location of the executable, call GetModuleFileName(), and strip off the file name. What you have left is the directory which contains your executable. Combine that with the relative path of your files and your code is now independent from the working directory.