Getting the Application's Directory from a Wpf Application

Getting the application's directory from a WPF application

One method:

System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory

Another way to do it would be:

System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainModule.FileName)

How do I get the application's directory from my WPF application, at design time?

From your description it sounds like your code is actually running inside the WPF Designer within Visual Studio, for example it is part of a custom control library that is being used for design.

In this case, Assembly.GetEntryAssembly() returns null, but the following code gets the path to the application directory:

  string applicationDirectory = (
    from assembly in AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies()
    where assembly.CodeBase.EndsWith(".exe")
    select System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(assembly.CodeBase.Replace("file:///", ""))
    ).FirstOrDefault();

The following steps can be used to demonstrate this works inside VS.NET 2008's WPF Designer tool:

1. Place this code inside a "WPF Custom Control Library" or "Class Library" project
2. Add whatever code is necessary to read the database and return the data for display (in my case I just returned the application directory itself as a string)
3. Reference the library project from the project you are designing
4. Use the custom controls or classes from a XAML file to populate your DataContext or otherwise supply data to your UI (in my case I bound DataContext using x:Static)
5. Edit that XAML file with the "Windows Presentation Foundation Designer", which can be done by just double-clicking unless you have changed your default editor, in which case use "Open With..."

When you follow these steps, the object you are looking at will be populated with data from your database the same way both at run time and design time.

There are other scenarios in which this same technique works just as well, and there are other solutions available depending on your needs. Please let us know if your needs are different those I assumed above. For example, if you are writing a VS.NET add-in, you are in a completely different ball game.

How to find root path of wpf app and create folder on root directory for saving images?

To get the string representing the path:

string path = Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);

Probably you want to do something like the following:

DirectoryInfo directory = new DirectoryInfo(path);

To create a new path based on root folder:

var imagePath = path + @"\MyAppName\Images"

if (!Directory.Exists(imagePath)) 
{   
   DirectoryInfo di = Directory.CreateDirectory(imagePath);
}

EDIT: As alternative you may use specials folders. For example LocalApplicationData, in this folder you can place machine scoped data of your application per user. Below the variable localData will be

C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Local

where USER_NAME is the user profile.

string localData = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData);
var imagePath = localData + @"\Images";

if (!Directory.Exists(imagePath)) 
{   
    DirectoryInfo di = Directory.CreateDirectory(imagePath);
}

How to get the application directory in WPF designer, .NET 6.0?

Assuming you have a DataContext class like this:

public class ViewModel
{
    public string Path { get; set; }
    public ViewModel()
    {
        Path = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;
    }
}

If you do a Binding on this Datacontext, for example like this:

<Grid>
    <TextBlock Text="{Binding Path}"></TextBlock>
</Grid>

Indeed, a different path is found between the Designer and the Runtime.
Here is a solution that generally works for this type of problem:

Create a class derived from your DataContext class, and set a test value (only valid for the Designer context):

public class DesignViewModel : ViewModel
{
    public DesignViewModel()
    {
        Path = "Path for Designer only";
    }
}

And then, use this class to set the Designer Datacontext:

d:DataContext="{d:DesignInstance Type=local:DesignViewModel, IsDesignTimeCreatable=True}"

It's a way to work around the problem by forcing the value you want for the Designer.

UPDATE

If you need to retrieve the path at the time of compile (instead of the Design Time), the CallerFilePathAttribute could be interesting.

Example:

public static string GetCompilationPath([System.Runtime.CompilerServices.CallerFilePath] string sourceFilePath = "")
{
    return sourceFilePath;
}

how to get current application path in wpf

Is this the property you're looking for?

System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory

WPF Working Directory

You should be able to get to your install directory either by finding the executable's directory or by using reflection to find an assemly's directory:

By finding executable, you could add a reference to Windows.Forms to make this work (admittedly not ideal):

using System.IO;
using System.Windows.Forms;

string appPath = Path.GetDirectoryName(Application.ExecutablePath);

Using reflection:

using System.IO;
using System.Reflection;

string path = Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(MyClass)).CodeBase);

Or

string path = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location;

You can probably just cache that path onload of your app as it will not change.

Find the location of my application's executable in WPF (C# or vb.net)?

System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location should work.

---

Related Topics