Converting absolute path to relative path C#

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Getting path relative to the current working directory?

I have code in C# that includes some images from an absolute path to a relative so the image can be found no matter where the application fold is located.

For example the path in my code (and in my laptop for the image) is

C:/something/res/images/image1.jpeg

and I want the path in my code to be

..../images/image1.jpeg 

So it can run wherever the folder is put, whatever the name of the C: partition is etc.

I want to have a path in my code which is independant of the application folder location or if it is in another partition, as long as it is in the same folder as the the rest of the solution.

I have this code:

 try 
 { 
     File.Delete("C:/JPD/SCRAT/Desktop/Project/Resources/images/image1.jpeg");
 } 
 catch (Exception) 
 { 
      MessageBox.Show("File not found:C:/Users/JPD/Desktop/Project/images/image1.jpeg");
  } 

This code only runs if the file and folder are in that certain path, (which is also the location of the code) I wish for that path to be relative so wherever I put the whole folder (code, files etc) the program will still work as long as the code (which is under project folder) is at the same location with the folder images... what should I do?

Answer 1

Relative paths are based from the binary file from which your application is running. By default, your binary files will be outputted in the [directory of your .csproj]/bin/debug. So let's say you wanted to create your images folder at the same level as your .csproj. Then you could access your images using the relative path "../../images/someImage.jpg".

To get a better feel for this, try out the following as a test:

1) create a new visual studio sample project,

2) create an images folder at the same level as the .csproj

3) put some files in the images folder

4) put this sample code in your main method -

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory());
        foreach (string s in Directory.EnumerateFiles("../../images/"))
        {
            Console.WriteLine(s); 
        }
        Console.ReadLine(); // Just to keep the console from disappearing.
    }

You should see the relative paths of all the files you placed in step (3).

Answer 2

see: Getting path relative to the current working directory?

Uri uri1 = new Uri(@"c:\foo\bar\blop\blap");
Uri uri2 = new Uri(@"c:\foo\bar\");
string relativePath = uri2.MakeRelativeUri(uri1).ToString();

Answer 3

Depending on the set up of your program, you might be able to simply use a relative path by skipping a part of the full path string. It's not braggable, so J. Skit might be up my shiny for it but I'm getting the impression that you simply want to make it work. Beauty being a later concern.

String absolutePath = @"c:\beep\boop\HereWeStart\hopp.gif";
String relativePath = absolutePath.Substring(13);

You could then, if you need/wish, exchange the number 13 (which is an ugly and undesirable approach, still working, though) for a dynamically computed one. For instance (assuming that the directory "HereWeStart", where your relative path is starting, is the first occurrence of that string in absolutePath) you could go as follows.

String absolutePath = @"c:\beep\boop\HereWeStart\hopp.gif";
int relativePathStartIndex = absolutePath.IndexOf("HereWeStart");
String relativePath = absolutePath.Substring(relativePathStartIndex);

Also, your question begs an other question. I'd like to know how you're obtaining the absolute path. Perhaps there's an even more clever way to avoid the hustle all together?

EDIT

You could also try the following approach. Forget the Directory class giving you an absolute path. Go for the relative path straight off. I'm assuming that all the files you're attempting to remove are in the same directory. If not, you'll need to add some more lines but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Don't forget to mark an answer as green-checked (or explain what's missing or improvable still).

String
  deletableTarget = @"\images\image1.jpeg", 
  hereWeAre = Environment.CurrentDirectory;
MessageBox.Show("The taget path is:\n" + hereWeAre + deletableTarget);

try
{ File.Delete(hereWeAre + deletableTarget); }
catch (Exception exception)
{ MessageBox.Show(exception.Message); }

Also, please note that I took the liberty of changing your exception handling. While yours is working, it's a better style to rely on the built-in messaging system. That way you'll get more professionally looking error messages. Not that we ever get any errors at run-time, right? ;)