How to Get the Application'S Path in a .Net Console Application

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

System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location¹

Combine that with System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName if all you want is the directory.

¹As per Mr.Mindor's comment:

System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location returns where the executing assembly is currently located, which may or may not be where the assembly is located when not executing. In the case of shadow copying assemblies, you will get a path in a temp directory. System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase will return the 'permanent' path of the assembly.

Best way to get application folder path

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.

how to get the path in a .NET console application

Directory.GetCurrentDirectory method is what you are looking for.

In .NET console app, how to get the path of the command prompt where the user typed the command?

Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() will do what you need (get the current working directory).

How to get execution directory of console application

Use Environment.CurrentDirectory.

Gets or sets the fully qualified path of the current working directory.

(MSDN Environment.CurrentDirectory Property)

string logsDirectory = Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, "logs");

If your application is running in c:\Foo\Bar logsDirectory will point to c:\Foo\Bar\logs.

How to get the path of the directory where the .exe file for a .Net Core console application is located?

I have found the answer thanks to this issue: https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/issues/13051

You have to use: Path.GetDirectoryName(Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainModule.FileName)

Get application directory using C# Console Application?

If you still want to use Application.ExecutablePath in console application you need to:

1. Add a reference to System.Windows.Forms namespace

2. Add System.Windows.Forms to your usings section

   using System;
   using System.IO;
   using System.Windows.Forms;
   
   namespace ConsoleApplication1
   {
       class Program
       {
           static void Main(string[] args)
           {
               string appDirectory = Path.GetDirectoryName(Application.ExecutablePath);
               Console.WriteLine(appDirectory);
           }
       }
   }
   

Also you can use Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() instead of Path.GetDirectoryName(Application.ExecutablePath) and thus you won't need a reference to System.Windows.Forms.

If you'd like not to include neither System.IO nor System.Windows.Forms namespaces then you should follow Reimeus's answer.

Get my application’s current path

to get the execution folder:

System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location);

to get the current directory:

Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()

they aren't necessarily the same thing, so be careful

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