Relevant file paths for reading in from a file?

Question

Working on something in XNA, need to be able to read in data from a text file for something.

Trying to figure out how I can shorten this pathname down, so instead of it always checking there, it just checks in the directory where the actual program is.

I tried doing "\Data\Zone\"+filenamestring+".txt" as my path but it didnt work.

What I have that works:

Sub loadFromFile(ByVal fileNameString As String)
        If System.IO.File.Exists("C:\Users\user\documents\visual studio 2010\Projects\asdf\asdf\asdf\Data\Zone\" + fileNameString + ".txt") Then
            MsgBox("It found it.")
        Else
            MsgBox("Could not find it")
        End If
End Sub

While this works, unfortunately this will probably only work on my machine. How do I shorten the file path so its flexible and relevant to the directory where the program is actually located at?

Timotei · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-13 19:05:43Z

Beware that there are multiple ways of getting the relevant directory:

The Environment.CurrentDirectory(MSDN) gives you the working directory of the app. That is not always what you want. For example, you call the .exe of your game from C:\, and the working directory will be C:\ not the one where the .exe resides
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory(MSDN) or Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)(MSDN) will give you the executable's directory. That is the directory where the executable resides.

The following is an example:

C:\Users\Me>D:\TestPaths\bin\Debug\TestPaths.exe
Environment.CurrentDirectory= C:\Users\Me
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory= D:\TestPaths\bin\Debug\
Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location= D:\TestPaths\bin\Debug

If you want just to read data that accompaniates the executable (like Content), then I'd suggest using the second approach (executable's directory)

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:37:37Z

0

I found a solution after a bit of research on Stack Overflow:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5745911/relative-path-names-vb2010

This seems to have done the trick for now.

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:37

CommunityBot

1

answered May 13, 2013 at 0:01

Shiester

1,1299 silver badges13 bronze badges

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