How to get root directory of project in asp.net core. Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() doesn't seem to work correctly on a mac

Question

My project has a folder structure to the tune of:

Project,
Project/data
Project/Engine
Project/Server
project/front-end

In the server (running in the Project/Server folder) I refer to the folder like this:

var rootFolder = Directory.GetCurrentDirectory();
rootFolder = rootFolder.Substring(0,
            rootFolder.IndexOf(@"\Project\", StringComparison.Ordinal) + @"\Project\".Length);
PathToData = Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(rootFolder, "Data"));

var Parser = Parser();
var d = new FileStream(Path.Combine(PathToData, $"{dataFileName}.txt"), FileMode.Open);
var fs = new StreamReader(d, Encoding.UTF8);

On my windows machine this code works fine since Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() reffered to the current folder, and doing

rootFolder.Substring(0, rootFolder.IndexOf(@"\Project\", StringComparison.Ordinal) + @"\Project\".Length);

gets me the root folder of the project (not the bin or debug folders). But when I ran it on a mac it got "Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()" sent me to /usr//[something else]. It didn't refer to the folder where my project lies.

What is the correct way to find relative paths in my project? Where should I store the data folder in a way that it is easily accessible to all the sub projects in the solution - specifically to the kestrel server project? I prefer to not have to store it in the wwwroot folder because the data folder is maintained by a different member in the team, and I just want to access the latest version. What are my options?

SliverNinja - MSFT · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-25T22:29:34.007

103

Depending on where you are in the kestrel pipeline - if you have access to IConfiguration (Startup.cs constructor) or IWebHostEnvironment (formerly IHostingEnvironment) you can either inject the IWebHostEnvironment into your constructor or just request the key from the configuration.

Inject `IWebHostEnvironment` in `Startup.cs` Constructor

public Startup(IConfiguration configuration, IWebHostEnvironment env)
{
     var contentRoot = env.ContentRootPath;
}

Using IConfiguration in Startup.cs Constructor

public Startup(IConfiguration configuration)
{
     var contentRoot = configuration.GetValue<string>(WebHostDefaults.ContentRootKey);
}

edited Aug 25 '20 at 22:29

answered Jul 11 '18 at 20:05

SliverNinja - MSFT

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you can probably inject IConfiguration in to the controller, and get what you need from that. right? – Yehuda Makarov May 07 '19 at 13:45
1

how can we access contentRoot in Startup ? – Cihan Küsmez Sep 17 '19 at 16:09
5

IHostingEnvironment is now obsolete int Core , and replaced by IWebHostEnvironment – Antonio Rodríguez Aug 19 '20 at 11:26
1

@AntonioRodríguez - updated to reflect, `IWebHostEnvironment` implements `IHostEnvironment` - [reference](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.aspnetcore.hosting.iwebhostenvironment?view=aspnetcore-3.1) - [`IHostingEnvironment` has been retired](https://stackoverflow.com/a/55602187/175679) – SliverNinja - MSFT Aug 25 '20 at 22:31

StefanJM · Answer 2 · 2019-01-26T16:08:07.503

77

Working on .Net Core 2.2 and 3.0 as of now.

To get the projects root directory within a Controller:

Create a property for the hosting environment

private readonly IHostingEnvironment _hostingEnvironment;

Add Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting to your controller
```
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;
```

Register the service in the constructor

public HomeController(IHostingEnvironment hostingEnvironment) {
    _hostingEnvironment = hostingEnvironment;
}

Now, to get the projects root path

string projectRootPath = _hostingEnvironment.ContentRootPath;

To get the "wwwroot" path, use

_hostingEnvironment.WebRootPath

edited Jan 26 '19 at 16:08

answered Dec 05 '18 at 20:09

StefanJM

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2

This approached worked fine for .Net Core 2.2 as well – Magnus Wallström Jan 21 '19 at 12:31
1

as want to get the file path in development mode mean while run the project from visual studio "_hostingEnvironment.WebRootPath" and "hostingEnvironment.ContentRootPath" both returns the null. what should i do to get the file path – malik saifullah Jan 26 '19 at 12:06
@maliksaifullah check that your `wwwroot` is there in the project and that it isn't empty. – StefanJM Jan 26 '19 at 16:05
@maliksaifullah Can you show me your controller where you're trying to get the path? – StefanJM Jan 26 '19 at 17:15
@maliksaifullah Are you registering the service in the controller? I don't think the `IHostingEvironment` is injected using dependency injection here and that's the problem. – StefanJM Jan 26 '19 at 17:43
yes i am registering it like this .AddSingleton(new HostingEnvironment()) and yes injecting it as dependency injection https://imgur.com/a/tRYvTTw – malik saifullah Jan 26 '19 at 18:26
anyone else running into the problem that @maliksaifullah had, MAKE SURE you have `app.UseStaticFiles();` written in the Startup class Configure method. This enables the use of static files - wwwroot folder. – StefanJM Feb 28 '19 at 07:40
2

Use `IHostEnvironment` from `Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting` instead. See [Announcement: IHostingEnvironment's and IApplicationLifetime's marked obsolete and replaced](https://github.com/dotnet/aspnetcore/issues/7749). – bachph Apr 22 '22 at 11:34

aleha · Answer 3 · 2018-10-26T13:16:42.083

35

In some cases _hostingEnvironment.ContentRootPath and System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() targets to source directory. Here is bug about it.

The solution proposed there helped me

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

edited Oct 26 '18 at 13:16

answered Aug 21 '18 at 14:31

aleha

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All .NET Core application is a Console. – Sith2021 Oct 22 '18 at 04:04
2

In a Core app this returned "...\bin\Debug\netcoreapp\" and not the root project folder as expected. – Yogi Mar 18 '20 at 01:49
1

@Roberto Root project folder for net core apps should not be returned. This is a correct behavior. – aleha Mar 18 '20 at 04:14

score 22 · Answer 4 · answered May 01 '17 at 21:23

As previously answered (and retracted). To get the base directory, as in the location of the running assembly, don't use Directory.GetCurrentDirectory(), rather get it from IHostingEnvironment.ContentRootPath.

private IHostingEnvironment _hostingEnvironment;
    private string projectRootFolder;
    public Program(IHostingEnvironment env)
    {
        _hostingEnvironment = env;
        projectRootFolder = env.ContentRootPath.Substring(0,
            env.ContentRootPath.LastIndexOf(@"\ProjectRoot\", StringComparison.Ordinal) + @"\ProjectRoot\".Length);
    }

However I made an additional error: I had set the ContentRoot Directory to Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() at startup undermining the default value which I had so desired! Here I commented out the offending line:

 public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var host = new WebHostBuilder().UseKestrel()
           // .UseContentRoot(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()) //<== The mistake
            .UseIISIntegration()
            .UseStartup<Program>()
            .Build();
        host.Run();
    }

Now it runs correctly - I can now navigate to sub folders of my projects root with:

var pathToData = Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(projectRootFolder, "data"));

I realised my mistake by reading BaseDirectory vs. Current Directory and @CodeNotFound founds answer (which was retracted because it didn't work because of the above mistake) which basically can be found here: Getting WebRoot Path and Content Root Path in Asp.net Core

FYI if you are wondering how to get IHostingEnvironment in Startup class: add it as constructor argument. — Endy Tjahjono, Aug 27 '18 at 09:34

score 20 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:54

Try looking here: Best way to get application folder path

To quote from there:

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).

score 17 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 03 '19 at 09:43

17

If you are using ASP.NET MVC Core 3 or newer, IHostingEnvironment has been deprecated and replaced with IWebHostEnvironment

public Startup(IWebHostEnvironment webHostEnvironment)
{
    var webRootPath = webHostEnvironment.WebRootPath;
}

answered Oct 03 '19 at 09:43

DavidG

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Technically, I believe `IHostingEnvironment` was replaced by `IHostEnvironment`. `IWebHostEnvironment` is a more specific variant, specific to web hosts. Library projects (arguably even your own solution's class libraries) would probably do well to avoid a dependency on `IWebHostEnvironment`, since they cannot guarantee that they will be run in a _web_ host. – Timo May 28 '21 at 08:53

score 16 · Answer 7 · edited Mar 14 '19 at 03:58

16

I solved the problem with this code:

using System.IO;

var path = Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location.Substring(0, Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location.IndexOf("bin\\")))

edited Mar 14 '19 at 03:58

jtate

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answered Mar 14 '19 at 02:07

Henrique A

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An answer that actually is understandable and works. thanks! – BMills Nov 12 '20 at 16:57
2

Please do not use this answer as it hardcodes `bin` which might not be present! – Alex from Jitbit Oct 18 '21 at 13:34

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Aug 12 '20 at 06:40

If that can be useful to anyone, in a Razor Page cshtml.cs file, here is how to get it: add an IHostEnvironment hostEnvironment parameter to the constructor and it will be injected automatically:

public class IndexModel : PageModel
{
    private readonly ILogger<IndexModel> _logger;
    private readonly IHostEnvironment _hostEnvironment;

    public IndexModel(ILogger<IndexModel> logger, IHostEnvironment hostEnvironment)
    {
        _logger = logger;
        _hostEnvironment = hostEnvironment; // has ContentRootPath property
    }

    public void OnGet()
    {

    }
}

PS: IHostEnvironment is in Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting namespace, in Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting.Abstractions.dll ... what a mess!

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 18 '21 at 13:33

1

If using the IWebHostEnvironment via DI is not an option for you, use

AppContext.BaseDirectory

answered Oct 18 '21 at 13:33

Alex from Jitbit

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Not sure why both options are giving different values. The correct one I seek was the BaseDirectory. Thanks! – Yasser Jarouf Oct 21 '21 at 12:56

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Nov 28 '21 at 01:38

Based on Henrique A technique and supports Unit Test contexts as well...

ReadOnlySpan<char> appPath = Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location.Replace("YOURTestProject", "YOUR");
var dir = Path.GetDirectoryName(appPath.Slice(0, appPath.IndexOf("bin\\")));
string path = Path.Combine(dir.ToString(), "Resources", "countries.dat");
if (System.IO.File.Exists(path))
{
    countries = System.IO.File.ReadAllLines(path);
}

score -2 · Answer 11 · answered Nov 24 '19 at 08:19

It seems IHostingEnvironment has been replaced by IHostEnvironment (and a few others). You should be able to change the interface type in your code and everything will work as it used to :-)

You can find more information about the changes at this link on GitHub https://github.com/aspnet/AspNetCore/issues/7749

EDIT There is also an additional interface IWebHostEnvironment that can be used in ASP.NET Core applications. This is available in the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting namespace.

Ref: https://stackoverflow.com/a/55602187/932448

This is a literal copy & paste from another answer. You should flag the question as a duplicate, not copy content. — DavidG, Aug 03 '21 at 13:49

How to get root directory of project in asp.net core. Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() doesn't seem to work correctly on a mac

11 Answers11

Inject `IWebHostEnvironment` in `Startup.cs` Constructor

Using IConfiguration in Startup.cs Constructor

Linked

Related

How to get root directory of project in asp.net core. Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() doesn't seem to work correctly on a mac

11 Answers11

Inject IWebHostEnvironment in Startup.cs Constructor

Using IConfiguration in Startup.cs Constructor

Linked

Related

Inject `IWebHostEnvironment` in `Startup.cs` Constructor