Find 'Application Files' directory after publish by ClickOnce

Question

After publish by using ClickOnce in C#, I got fully confused about how to find the directory of the folder: 'Application Files' . The reason I want to do this is I want to put some files into this folder and let C# to read them after the user installed my application.

I have tried like: System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location) , but I always got like: C:\Users\AppData\Local\Apps\2.0\4DAZ7HKJ.7TP\OZ02N2HD.7PG\cons..tion_a9321ce7eb14b63e_0001.0000_7ed45506b35ff771 , which I don't want. Since my publish folder is in D:\ , what I want is like: D:\Application Files .

Thanks in advance to anyone who read my question!

Answer 1

To include a file to your publish, you don't need to include it in the folder manually, instead you should add the file to your project and set its Build Action to Content . To make sure the file is included in publish, go to Project → Properties → Publish Tab → Application Files Button and see if Publish Status of your file is Include (Auto) .

After deploying the application those files will be deployed near the application executable file. For example if you include image.png , then you can find it this way:

var path = System.IO.Path.Combine(Application.StartupPath, "image.png");

Also if for any reason you are looking for your publish folder you can see the path you used for publish, in Project → Properties → Publish → Publish Location or in <PublishUrl> tag in your project file.

Regardless of the location you published the files, there is a copy of them in the \bin\debug folder of your project under app.publish folder.

Answer 2

按照您不想要的路径，您会发现一个可执行文件能够尊重您使用System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location)所期望的内容

Answer 3

For those looking for the WPF way, here two equivalent methods:

var appPath = System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory

var appPath = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainModule.FileName)

and then use it like this:

var path = System.IO.Path.Combine(appPath, "image.png");