How do I get the path of the assembly the code is in?

Question

Is there a way to get the path for the assembly in which the current code resides? I do not want the path of the calling assembly, just the one containing the code.

Basically my unit test needs to read some xml test files which are located relative to the dll. I want the path to always resolve correctly regardless of whether the testing dll is run from TestDriven.NET, the MbUnit GUI or something else.

Edit: People seem to be misunderstanding what I'm asking.

My test library is located in say

C:\projects\myapplication\daotests\bin\Debug\daotests.dll

and I would like to get this path:

C:\projects\myapplication\daotests\bin\Debug\

The three suggestions so far fail me when I run from the MbUnit Gui:

• Environment.CurrentDirectory gives c:\Program Files\MbUnit

• System.Reflection.Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(DaoTests)).Location gives C:\Documents and Settings\george\Local Settings\Temp\ ....\DaoTests.dll

• System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location gives the same as the previous.

Logography

This is your solution: var dir = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory; – Beanstalk

This should be the accepted solution. AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory is the correct approach. – Flair

See related: finding-my-main-executables-path-using-assembly-vs-appdomain – Leonard

I came here looking for a solution for a nuget package to read a JSON file from its pacakge directory. Seems that when a nuget package is executed the "AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory" points to the running projects directory, and not the nuget package directory. None of these seem to target the nuget package directory correctly. – Proof

@Proof no it wouldn't because that's not what this question was about (in fact when it was asked, nuget didn't exist) - feel free to start a new question and ping me in there but I can tell you right now that its impossible in most cases. For most projects the nuget directory is packages next to the sln file. BUT when you compile and distribute things there is no sln file and no packages directory. During compilation, things that are needed (but not everything) is copied into the bin directory. Your best bet is to use a postbuild script to copy the file you want. – Logography

For those reading these comments believing AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory is the correct solution, please refer to this comment which offers a better solution. – Dermis

Answer 1

Note: Assembly.CodeBase is deprecated in .NET Core/.NET 5+: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.reflection.assembly.codebase?view=net-5.0

Original answer:

I've defined the following property as we use this often in unit testing.

public static string AssemblyDirectory
{
    get
    {
        string codeBase = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase;
        UriBuilder uri = new UriBuilder(codeBase);
        string path = Uri.UnescapeDataString(uri.Path);
        return Path.GetDirectoryName(path);
    }
}

The Assembly.Location property sometimes gives you some funny results when using NUnit (where assemblies run from a temporary folder), so I prefer to use CodeBase which gives you the path in URI format, then UriBuild.UnescapeDataString removes the File:// at the beginning, and GetDirectoryName changes it to the normal windows format.

Levania

This has one issue I came across, if your directory name is: c:\My%20Directory then the Uri.UnescapeDataString will return: c:\My Directory This means that File.Exists("c:\My Directory\MyFile.txt") will return false as the correct path is actually "c:\My%20Directory\MyFile.txt" I came across this as our SVN paths have spaces in them and when we check them out it encodes the spaces. – Torbernite

damn, that still doesnt work for me :0( Now instead of it giving me the MSBuild path, i get the path of TeamCity C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\temp\buildTmp\SYSTEM_SVR1 2010-08-24 17_34_23\Out but yet another way to get a path :-) – Exequies

@John Sibly: returns the path of the executing assembly - not the assembly (as in a .dll) that is being loaded by the calling executable. I need the .dll to be able to set a working directory. +1 though for a helpful answer and a good starting point. – Economizer

Be careful when you use this to check File.Exist() as this method will return false on UNC path. Use @Keith's answer instead. – Moynihan

Did not know you could put static before public. Nice to know and i think i prefer for readability – Phanotron

For people that need to know, Assembly is in System.Reflection, and Path is in System.IO. :) – Mitch

Note: this does not work with network locations (e.g. \\REMOT_EPC\Folder) – Alti

Note that the second line will trigger CA2234. Pass in new Uri(codeBase) to the UriBuilder constructor to fix the warning. – Tolerance

@Tolerance Which version of Visual Studio are you using that triggers the error? Just tried in VS2012 and it seems OK – Levania

@JohnSibly 2012, although via msbuild on the command-line. If you look at the rules that are enabled, is 2234 checked? I'm not sure if it's one of the default ones for Minimum Recommended. – Tolerance

Also this will not work if the directory has number signs '#' in it. Number signs are allowed in directory and file names in Windows. – Biomedicine

CodeBase is a mess. Here's my take on it: https://mcmap.net/q/54551/-how-can-i-convert-assembly-codebase-into-a-filesystem-path-in-c – Cartel

I've relied on this method for years, but it failed me today when the directory path in question contained an '#'. – Ballentine

This works the same and seems shorter: string path = new Uri(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase).LocalPath; return Path.GetDirectoryName(path); – Retrocede

This is not testable... All your unit tests that will test that code will fail! see @Jalal answer – Recreate

We used CodeBase for a long time, and have now upgraded to .Net45. The behaviour of CodeBase has changed so this no longer returns the directory. Do not use .CodeBase if you're using newer versions of DotNet! We're now using AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory which works properly for any version of DotNet – Helse

I believe that a solution from my answer below https://mcmap.net/q/53357/-how-do-i-get-the-path-of-the-assembly-the-code-is-in should cover all the use cases and is quite simple. Another user reported it works pretty much everywhere including console, web, unit tests – Accordion

CodeBase is deprecated in .net core : learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/… . See my answer below https://mcmap.net/q/53357/-how-do-i-get-the-path-of-the-assembly-the-code-is-in – Tamboura

CodeBase has become obsolete. Assembly.Location is the preferred alternative. – Agace

Answer 2

It's as simple as this:

var dir = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;

Beanstalk

This should be the accepted solution. AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory is the correct approach. – Flair

thanks for bringing my attention back to this - not sure if that was available at the time I asked the question but it is now. – Logography

No, this is wrong. This returns the path of the ORIGINAL ENTRY POINT not the currently executing code. If you have loaded an assembly manually from a different path, or if it has been loaded from GAC, it will return the wrong result. This answer is correct: https://mcmap.net/q/53357/-how-do-i-get-the-path-of-the-assembly-the-code-is-in Quicker still is Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location). – Ibbie

Actually this won't work in web applications but as far as I have found the following augmentation should work for any type of application: AppDomain.CurrentDomain.RelativeSearchPath ?? AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory – Accordion

To Ilya Chernomordik. For web applications I use: System.Web.Hosting.HostingEnvironment.ApplicationPhysicalPath – Clothier

This is excellent for unit testing if you just want to get the original bin path of your test assembly (say, to reach auxilary data files in subfolders). The test assembly is the entry point of your code. – Westley

@IlyaChernomordik I believe your solution covers the most scenarios - any scenario I have encountered, unlike any other answer. It deserves more visibility. You could definitely post it as a separate answer. – Guadalquivir

Have posted an answer that seems to work for any kind of application: https://mcmap.net/q/53357/-how-do-i-get-the-path-of-the-assembly-the-code-is-inl like @Guadalquivir has suggested – Accordion

This also wont work if you are using .netcore since AppDomains are not supported there: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/porting/… – Magistrate

Only valid for basic scenario, not working for plugin dlls: it will return dir path of the main app assembly. – Rist

Answer 3

Does this help?

//get the full location of the assembly with DaoTests in it
string fullPath = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(DaoTests)).Location;

//get the folder that's in
string theDirectory = Path.GetDirectoryName( fullPath );

Ogrady

see my edit, it does not, is this something strange about how MbUnit does things? – Logography

How come? fullPath would be "C:\projects\myapplication\daotests\bin\Debug\daotests.dll" theDirectory would be "C:\projects\myapplication\daotests\bin\Debug" Isn't that what you want? – Ogrady

Ahh, no I get you. MSTest does the same thing - everything is copied to a new temp directory every time. – Ogrady

Set the xml files to be content, copied with the dll, or resources, read from the dll. – Ogrady

Or just typeof(DaoTests).Assembly – Pique

I'd personally go with a method like this: public static string GetAssemblyDirectory<T>(){return System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(typeof(T).Assembly.Location);} – Pera

@JohnySkovdal - why use a generic when the return type is always string and the input always Type? You could do: public static string GetAssemblyDirectory(this Type input){return System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(input.Assembly.Location);} that way you don't need to know the type explicitly: unknown.GetType().GetAssemblyDirectory(); – Ogrady

@Ogrady - I'm simply replacing the input paramater with a type parameter so I won't have to call typeof, like you do in your example. As for not needing the type explicitly I haven't had a need for that yet, which is why I haven't got an overload that takes a System.Type as input (yet). – Pera

@Pique @JohnySkovdal @Ogrady : Hey guys, use Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(). It "gets the assembly that contains the code that is currently executing" (from method description). I use this in my AddIn "EntitiesToDTOs". See AssemblyHelper.cs for real example. – Toddle

Had a problem with the post by @John Silby, as it doesnt look like it works for UNC paths... e.g. \\Server\Folder\File.ext. This one did the trick. +1 – Influx

@FabianFernandez look at the question again, that's not what is wanted here, and it is already mentioned as a non-working solution. – Pera

Yep, I reviewed the question and you are right, seems like I didn't notice that when I saw the question the first time. My bad, thanks! – Toddle

How do you get the location without the trailing bin/Debug/netcoreapp etc? – Subhead

Answer 4

Same as John's answer, but a slightly less verbose extension method.

public static string GetDirectoryPath(this Assembly assembly)
{
    string filePath = new Uri(assembly.CodeBase).LocalPath;
    return Path.GetDirectoryName(filePath);            
}

Now you can do:

var localDir = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetDirectoryPath();

or if you prefer:

var localDir = typeof(DaoTests).Assembly.GetDirectoryPath();

Alumnus

Did you meant assembly instead of Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly() ? – Bunche

As Dude points out, you passed in an argument and failed to use it. – Reichsmark

This answer is just plain wrong for the question at hand. A modified version of this answer could give you the path of a given assembly. However, here, we're specifically looking for the executing assembly, and so passing in an assembly makes no sense. An extension method is the wrong tool for the job. – Cerebroside

How do you get the location without the trailing bin/Debug/netcoreapp etc? – Subhead

This solves the problem when called like Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetDirectoryPath(). And new Uri is cleaner than using UriBuilder and UnescapeDataString in John Sibly's answer. – Needful

Answer 5

The only solution that worked for me when using CodeBase and UNC Network shares was:

System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(new System.Uri(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase).LocalPath);

It also works with normal URIs too.

Simmon

This should be the accepted answer. It's really annoying that the default codebase doesn't handle UNC shares correct. – Striper

This comes crashing down when the folder contains spaces and god knows what other characters... – Westley

I've been using this a lot and have found one scenario where it fails: if this line of code itself is part of a NuGet package which is then used by an application! We can support that scenario too by replacing GetExecutingAssembly() by GetCallingAssembly(). – Guadalquivir

@Timo: have you verified if this change has side effects? If so please edit the answer to include the fix. – Simmon

@IgnacioSolerGarcia Sadly I must report that it only worked one layer deep, i.e. it fails if the NuGet package was called by another NuGet package! I am now using this (from a comment on this page by Chernomordik): AppDomain.CurrentDomain.RelativeSearchPath ?? AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory. The first part is for web applications, and the second for other applications. – Guadalquivir

Answer 6

This should work, unless the assembly is shadow copied:

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

Vaulting

Worth pointing out that the dll IS shadow copied in the case of web applications so consequently most of the suggestions above will return a subfolder of "Temporary ASP.NET Files". This answer at least points out the shadow copy element. – Petronille

Answer 7

I believe this would work for any kind of application:

AppDomain.CurrentDomain.RelativeSearchPath ?? AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory

Accordion

My experiments show this to be the most foolproof answer, covering not only web and console applications, but also calls from unit tests and NuGet packages (nested to any level of recursion). – Guadalquivir

Thanks for this elegant solution! – Marsupium

Also works for ASP.net applications (assembly files are shadow copied to Temporary ASP.NET Files); – Petronille

Answer 8

Starting with .net framework 4.6 / .net core 1.0, there is now a AppContext.BaseDirectory, which should give the same result as AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, except that AppDomains were not part of the .net core 1.x /.net standard 1.x API.

AppContext.BaseDirectory

EDIT: The documentation now even state:

In .NET 5.0 and later versions, for bundled assemblies, the value returned is the containing directory of the host executable.

Indeed, Assembly.Location doc doc says :

In .NET 5.0 and later versions, for bundled assemblies, the value returned is an empty string.

Tamboura

This is the correct answer according to AOT warning Warning IL3000: 'System.Reflection.Assembly.Location' always returns an empty string for assemblies embedded in a single-file app. If the path to the app directory is needed, consider calling 'System.AppContext.BaseDirectory'. – Gemagemara

Answer 9

What about this:

System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);

Domesticate

Does not work with .net 5 bundled assemblies , see https://mcmap.net/q/53357/-how-do-i-get-the-path-of-the-assembly-the-code-is-in – Tamboura

Answer 10

AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory

works with MbUnit GUI.

Drayton

This worked great for writing a file relative to the root directory in an asp.net web app – Deity

I have found that this one works best generally. Pick it if you are unsure. – Fisken

this is the only correct answers, all the other answers are deprecated and do not work when assemblies are merged as the location will be empty – Acidhead

Answer 11

I suspect that the real issue here is that your test runner is copying your assembly to a different location. There's no way at runtime to tell where the assembly was copied from, but you can probably flip a switch to tell the test runner to run the assembly from where it is and not to copy it to a shadow directory.

Such a switch is likely to be different for each test runner, of course.

Have you considered embedding your XML data as resources inside your test assembly?

Blat

+1 for pointing out the issue with shadow copying. However, it is indeed possible to determine the original place from the Assembly.CodeBase. – Halflength

Answer 12

How about this ...

string ThisdllDirectory = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);

Then just hack off what you do not need

Generate

Answer 13

tl;dr

The concept of an assembly and a DLL file are not the same. Depending on how the assembly was loaded the path information gets lost or is not available at all. Most of the time the provided answers will work, though.

---

There is one misconception the question and the previous answers have. In most of the cases the provided answers will work just fine but there are cases where it is not possible to get the correct path of the assembly which the current code resides.

The concept of an assembly - which contains executable code - and a dll file - which contains the assembly - are not tightly coupled. An assembly may come from a DLL file but it does not have to.

Using the Assembly.Load(Byte[]) (MSDN) method you can load an assembly directly from a byte array in memory. It does not matter where the byte array comes from. It could be loaded from a file, downloaded from the internet, dynamically generated,...

Here is an example which loads an assembly from a byte array. The path information gets lost after the file was loaded. It is not possible to get the original file path and all previous described methods do not work.

This method is located in the executing assembly which is located at "D:/Software/DynamicAssemblyLoad/DynamicAssemblyLoad/bin/Debug/Runner.exe"

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var fileContent = File.ReadAllBytes(@"C:\Library.dll");

    var assembly = Assembly.Load(fileContent);

    // Call the method of the library using reflection
    assembly
        ?.GetType("Library.LibraryClass")
        ?.GetMethod("PrintPath", BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static)
        ?.Invoke(null, null);

    Console.WriteLine("Hello from Application:");
    Console.WriteLine($"GetViaAssemblyCodeBase: {GetViaAssemblyCodeBase(assembly)}");
    Console.WriteLine($"GetViaAssemblyLocation: {assembly.Location}");
    Console.WriteLine($"GetViaAppDomain       : {AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory}");

    Console.ReadLine();
}

This class is located in the Library.dll:

public class LibraryClass
{
    public static void PrintPath()
    {
        var assembly = Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(LibraryClass));
        Console.WriteLine("Hello from Library:");
        Console.WriteLine($"GetViaAssemblyCodeBase: {GetViaAssemblyCodeBase(assembly)}");
        Console.WriteLine($"GetViaAssemblyLocation: {assembly.Location}");
        Console.WriteLine($"GetViaAppDomain       : {AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory}");
    }
}

For the sake of completeness here is the implementations of GetViaAssemblyCodeBase() which is the same for both assemblies:

private static string GetViaAssemblyCodeBase(Assembly assembly)
{
    var codeBase = assembly.CodeBase;
    var uri = new UriBuilder(codeBase);
    return Uri.UnescapeDataString(uri.Path);
}

The Runner prints the following output:

Hello from Library:
GetViaAssemblyCodeBase: D:/Software/DynamicAssemblyLoad/DynamicAssemblyLoad/bin/Debug/Runner.exe
GetViaAssemblyLocation:
GetViaAppDomain       : D:\Software\DynamicAssemblyLoad\DynamicAssemblyLoad\bin\Debug\
Hello from Application:
GetViaAssemblyCodeBase: D:/Software/DynamicAssemblyLoad/DynamicAssemblyLoad/bin/Debug/Runner.exe
GetViaAssemblyLocation:
GetViaAppDomain       : D:\Software\DynamicAssemblyLoad\DynamicAssemblyLoad\bin\Debug\

As you can see, neither the code base, location or base directory are correct.

Idou

Answer 14

As far as I can tell, most of the other answers have a few problems.

The correct way to do this for a disk-based (as opposed to web-based), non-GACed assembly is to use the currently executing assembly's CodeBase property.

This returns a URL (file://). Instead of messing around with string manipulation or UnescapeDataString, this can be converted with minimal fuss by leveraging the LocalPath property of Uri.

var codeBaseUrl = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase;
var filePathToCodeBase = new Uri(codeBaseUrl).LocalPath;
var directoryPath = Path.GetDirectoryName(filePathToCodeBase);

Krystakrystal

Does not work if path contains # (EscapedCodeBase works, but EscapedCodeBase does not work if the path contains e.g. %20 verbatim (which is an allowed character sequence in a Windows path) – Cartel

If we want to have this code in a NuGet package, we can fix that scenario by replacing GetExecutingAssembly() by GetCallingAssembly(). – Guadalquivir

Answer 15

Here is a VB.NET port of John Sibly's code. Visual Basic is not case sensitive, so a couple of his variable names were colliding with type names.

Public Shared ReadOnly Property AssemblyDirectory() As String
    Get
        Dim codeBase As String = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase
        Dim uriBuilder As New UriBuilder(codeBase)
        Dim assemblyPath As String = Uri.UnescapeDataString(uriBuilder.Path)
        Return Path.GetDirectoryName(assemblyPath)
    End Get
End Property

Lipolysis

Answer 16

var assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
var assemblyPath = assembly.GetFiles()[0].Name;
var assemblyDir = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(assemblyPath);

Croquet

Answer 17

In all these years, nobody has actually mentioned this one. A trick I learned from the awesome ApprovalTests project. The trick is that you use the debugging information in the assembly to find the original directory.

This will not work in RELEASE mode, nor with optimizations enabled, nor on a machine different from the one it was compiled on.

But this will get you paths that are relative to the location of the source code file you call it from

public static class PathUtilities
{
    public static string GetAdjacentFile(string relativePath)
    {
        return GetDirectoryForCaller(1) + relativePath;
    }
    public static string GetDirectoryForCaller()
    {
        return GetDirectoryForCaller(1);
    }


    public static string GetDirectoryForCaller(int callerStackDepth)
    {
        var stackFrame = new StackTrace(true).GetFrame(callerStackDepth + 1);
        return GetDirectoryForStackFrame(stackFrame);
    }

    public static string GetDirectoryForStackFrame(StackFrame stackFrame)
    {
        return new FileInfo(stackFrame.GetFileName()).Directory.FullName + Path.DirectorySeparatorChar;
    }
}

Logography

Answer 18

I've been using Assembly.CodeBase instead of Location:

Assembly a;
a = Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(DaoTests));
string s = a.CodeBase.ToUpper(); // file:///c:/path/name.dll
Assert.AreEqual(true, s.StartsWith("FILE://"), "CodeBase is " + s);
s = s.Substring(7, s.LastIndexOf('/') - 7); // 7 = "file://"
while (s.StartsWith("/")) {
    s = s.Substring(1, s.Length - 1);
}
s = s.Replace("/", "\\");

It's been working, but I'm no longer sure it is 100% correct. The page at http://blogs.msdn.com/suzcook/archive/2003/06/26/assembly-codebase-vs-assembly-location.aspx says:

"The CodeBase is a URL to the place where the file was found, while the Location is the path where it was actually loaded. For example, if the assembly was downloaded from the internet, its CodeBase may start with "http://", but its Location may start with "C:\". If the file was shadow-copied, the Location would be the path to the copy of the file in the shadow copy dir. It’s also good to know that the CodeBase is not guaranteed to be set for assemblies in the GAC. Location will always be set for assemblies loaded from disk, however."

You may want to use CodeBase instead of Location.

Bushhammer

@Kiquenet: So much code just for converting an URI into a path. Sure it could be improved. Look at Mike Schall's or SoMoS's answer. You should not try to convert URIs on string level, but instead use the suitable objects. OK, it is also clumsy that Assembly.CodeBase returns a string instead of a more suitable object, like URI or FileInfo. – Arabian

Answer 19

in a windows form app, you can simply use Application.StartupPath

but for DLLs and console apps the code is much harder to remember...

string slash = Path.DirectorySeparatorChar.ToString();
string root = Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);

root += slash;
string settingsIni = root + "settings.ini"

Transmarine

Answer 20

You can get the bin path by AppDomain.CurrentDomain.RelativeSearchPath

Crystlecs

Answer 21

All of the proposed answers work when the developer can change the code to include the required snippet, but if you wanted to do this without changing any code you could use Process Explorer.

It will list all executing dlls on the system, you may need to determine the process id of your running application, but that is usually not too difficult.

I've written a full description of how do this for a dll inside II - http://nodogmablog.bryanhogan.net/2016/09/locating-and-checking-an-executing-dll-on-a-running-web-server/

Marcomarconi

Note that first of all, the code in the article is fairly IIS-centric and second, it gives you (I believe) all currently loaded dlls, not what is running at any one time. – Logography

The example given relates to iis, but the same steps apply if the dll is running in a process outside of iis. It's just a matter of identifying the process id. I'll update article to note that. Thanks for the suggestion. – Marcomarconi

Answer 22

The current directory where you exist.

Environment.CurrentDirectory;  // This is the current directory of your application

If you copy the .xml file out with build you should find it.

or

System.Reflection.Assembly assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(SomeObject));

// The location of the Assembly
assembly.Location;

Gilboa

this will be problematic if the assembly has been shadow copied. – Krystakrystal

+1520! Environment.CurrentDirectory works if you are using reflection in MSBuild task class, where the executing assembly resides in GAC and your code is somewhere else. – Shulman

In general CurrentDirectory does not tell you where your executables reside. That's not what it is used for. It just happens to frequently be the same location the executables are in, so a lot of programmers don't understand the difference. Then they end up creating trouble for some of the end users that expected the application to understand proper use of CurrentDirectory. – Passport

Answer 23

You will get incorrect directory if a path contains the '#' symbol. So I use a modification of the John Sibly answer that is combination UriBuilder.Path and UriBuilder.Fragment:

public static string AssemblyDirectory
{
    get
    {
        string codeBase = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase;
        UriBuilder uri = new UriBuilder(codeBase);
        //modification of the John Sibly answer    
        string path = Uri.UnescapeDataString(uri.Path.Replace("/", "\\") + 
          uri.Fragment.Replace("/", "\\"));
        return Path.GetDirectoryName(path);
     }
}

Herald

Answer 24

For ASP.Net, it doesn't work. I found a better covered solution at Why AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory not contains "bin" in asp.net app?. It works for both Win Application and ASP.Net Web Application.

public string ApplicationPath
    {
        get
        {
            if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.RelativeSearchPath))
            {
                return AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory; //exe folder for WinForms, Consoles, Windows Services
            }
            else
            {
                return AppDomain.CurrentDomain.RelativeSearchPath; //bin folder for Web Apps 
            }
        }
    }

Overslaugh

Answer 25

string path = Path.GetDirectoryName(typeof(DaoTests).Module.FullyQualifiedName);

Tertiary

Answer 26

This should work:

ExeConfigurationFileMap fileMap = new ExeConfigurationFileMap();
Assembly asm = Assembly.GetCallingAssembly();
String path = Path.GetDirectoryName(new Uri(asm.EscapedCodeBase).LocalPath);

string strLog4NetConfigPath = System.IO.Path.Combine(path, "log4net.config");

I am using this to deploy DLL file libraries along with some configuration file (this is to use log4net from within the DLL file).

Patric

What is fileMap used for here? – Logography

Answer 27

This is what I came up with. In between web projects, unit tests (nunit and resharper test runner); I found this worked for me.

I have been looking for code to detect what configuration the build is in, Debug/Release/CustomName. Alas, the #if DEBUG. So if someone can improve that!

Feel free to edit and improve.

Getting app folder. Useful for web roots, unittests to get the folder of test files.

public static string AppPath
{
    get
    {
        DirectoryInfo appPath = new DirectoryInfo(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory);

        while (appPath.FullName.Contains(@"\bin\", StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase)
                || appPath.FullName.EndsWith(@"\bin", StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase))
        {
            appPath = appPath.Parent;
        }
        return appPath.FullName;
    }
}

Getting bin folder: Useful for executing assemblies using reflection. If files are copied there due to build properties.

public static string BinPath
{
    get
    {
        string binPath = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;

        if (!binPath.Contains(@"\bin\", StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase)
            && !binPath.EndsWith(@"\bin", StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase))
        {
            binPath = Path.Combine(binPath, "bin");
            //-- Please improve this if there is a better way
            //-- Also note that apps like webapps do not have a debug or release folder. So we would just return bin.
#if DEBUG
            if (Directory.Exists(Path.Combine(binPath, "Debug"))) 
                        binPath = Path.Combine(binPath, "Debug");
#else
            if (Directory.Exists(Path.Combine(binPath, "Release"))) 
                        binPath = Path.Combine(binPath, "Release");
#endif
        }
            return binPath;
    }
}

Phanotron

Answer 28

I find my solution adequate for the retrieval of the location.

var executingAssembly = new FileInfo((Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)).Directory.FullName;

Scrawl

This is already one of the top-rated answers and is mentioned explicitly in the question as something that doesn't work in this situation. – Logography

Apologies must of missed that! Obviously I didn't read through thoroughly. – Scrawl

Answer 29

I got the same behaviour in the NUnit in the past. By default NUnit copies your assembly into the temp directory. You can change this behaviour in the NUnit settings:

Maybe TestDriven.NET and MbUnit GUI have the same settings.

Speedway

Answer 30

I use this to get the path to the Bin Directory:

var i = Environment.CurrentDirectory.LastIndexOf(@"\");
var path = Environment.CurrentDirectory.Substring(0,i); 

You get this result:

"c:\users\ricooley\documents\visual studio 2010\Projects\Windows_Test_Project\Windows_Test_Project\bin"

Algonkian

I don't see a reason to avoid Path.getDirectoryName here – Delao

@MaxKeller If you don't see reasons, it doesn't mean that it is right. This alternative method of Path.GetDirectoryName is ten times faster. – Lindalindahl

This answer is wrong: The directory of the executing assembly will often coincidentally be the same as the directory of the executing assembly, but it's not necessarily it. Also, this alternate to Path.GetDirectoryName is not portable (it's specific to Windows). – Pagurian

Answer 31

Web application?

Server.MapPath("~/MyDir/MyFile.ext")

Bangkok

@christiandev this is an answer but it maybe seems to be an answer to the wrong question. From the question its pretty clear that this is not a web application but an assembly being run with MbUnit. That being said, the answer is still not really correct due to Asp.Net shadow copying (although it could conceivably be what someone landing on this question is looking for). – Logography