How to create a file relative to Program.cs

Question

I want to create a file relative to Program.cs. This code in case of VSCode works correct:

string myFile1 = @".\temp1.txt";
File.Create(myFile1);
string myFile2 = "./temp2.txt";
File.Create(myFile2);

but Visual Studio IDE 2022 creates file in:

`MyProject\bin\Debug\net6.0`

Is there any universal solution?

C# is a compiled language. This means that `Program.cs` does not exist on the computer that executes this code! The location of the *source code* is completely irrelevant while executing the application. What you actually need is to find the location *of the executable*. How to do this is explained in the linked duplicate question. — Konrad Rudolph, Nov 30 '22 at 13:02

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 30 '22 at 12:29

1

You can include the following method anywhere within your project:

using System.Runtime.CompilerServices

public static string GetSourceFilePathName( [CallerFilePath] string? callerFilePath = null )
    => callerFilePath ?? "";

Then, you can invoke that method from your Program.cs, and it will give you C:\Users\YOU\Documents\Projects\MyProject\Program.cs.

I suppose you know what to do from there.

answered Nov 30 '22 at 12:29

Mike Nakis

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I've found an unversal solution: `string netDirectoryPath = @$"{Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location)}"; string projectDirectoryPath = @$"{netDirectoryPath}\..\..\.."; File.Create(@$"{projectDirectoryPath}\temp.txt");` – Developer Mister Nov 30 '22 at 12:50
@DeveloperMister Your code is … odd, to say the least. Why are you going up *three levels*? This doesn’t look very universal at all. You write that the duplicate is not applicable here, but I still think it very much is, and that it solves your problem. – Konrad Rudolph Nov 30 '22 at 12:52

How to create a file relative to Program.cs

1 Answers1