What is the simplest way to get the directory that a file is in? I'm using this to set a working directory.
string filename = @"C:\MyDirectory\MyFile.bat";
In this example, I should get "C:\MyDirectory".
If you've definitely got an absolute path, use Path.GetDirectoryName(path)
.
If you might only get a relative name, use new FileInfo(path).Directory.FullName
.
Note that Path
and FileInfo
are both found in the namespace System.IO
.
If you are working with a FileInfo
object, then there is an easy way to extract a string
representation of the directory's full path via the DirectoryName
property.
Description of the FileInfo.DirectoryName
Property via MSDN:
Gets a string representing the directory's full path.
Sample usage:
string filename = @"C:\MyDirectory\MyFile.bat";
FileInfo fileInfo = new FileInfo(filename);
string directoryFullPath = fileInfo.DirectoryName; // contains "C:\MyDirectory"
Link to the MSDN documentation.
You can use Path.GetFullPath
for most of the case.
But if you want to get the path also in the case of the file name is relatively located then you can use the below generic method:
string GetPath(string filePath)
{
return Path.GetDirectoryName(Path.GetFullPath(filePath))
}
For example:
GetPath("C:\Temp\Filename.txt")
return "C:\Temp\"
GetPath("Filename.txt")
return current working directory
like "C:\Temp\"
@"C:\MyDirectory\MyFile.bat"
– Edgar