How do you get the current project directory from C code when creating a custom MSBuild task

Question

Instead of running an external program with its path hardcoded  I would like to get the current Project Dir  I m calling an external program using a process in the custom task   How would I do that  AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory just gives me the location of VS 2008

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This works on VS2017 w  SDK Core MSBuild configurations   You need to NuGet in the EnvDTE   EnvDTE80 packages   Do not use COM or interop  anything       garbage     internal class Program       private static readonly DTE2  dte2          Static Constructor     static Program            dte2    DTE2 Marshal GetActiveObject  VisualStudio DTE 15 0                private static void FindProjectsIn ProjectItem item  List lt Project gt  results          if  item Object is Project            var proj    Project  item Object          if  new Guid proj Kind     new Guid Constants vsProjectItemKindPhysicalFolder             results Add  Project  item Object           else           foreach  ProjectItem innerItem in proj ProjectItems              FindProjectsIn innerItem  results                  if  item ProjectItems    null          foreach  ProjectItem innerItem in item ProjectItems            FindProjectsIn innerItem  results               private static void FindProjectsIn UIHierarchyItem item  List lt Project gt  results          if  item Object is Project            var proj    Project  item Object          if  new Guid proj Kind     new Guid Constants vsProjectItemKindPhysicalFolder             results Add  Project  item Object           else           foreach  ProjectItem innerItem in proj ProjectItems              FindProjectsIn innerItem  results                  foreach  UIHierarchyItem innerItem in item UIHierarchyItems          FindProjectsIn innerItem  results               private static IEnumerable lt Project gt  GetEnvDTEProjectsInSolution           var ret   new List lt Project gt           var hierarchy    dte2 ToolWindows SolutionExplorer        foreach  UIHierarchyItem innerItem in hierarchy UIHierarchyItems          FindProjectsIn innerItem  ret         return ret              private static void Main           var projects   GetEnvDTEProjectsInSolution          var solutiondir   Path GetDirectoryName  dte2 Solution FullName             TODO                  var project   projects FirstOrDefault p   gt  p Name     lt current project gt          Console WriteLine project FullName

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I had a similar situation  and after fruitless Googles  I declared a public string  which mods a string value of the debug   release path to get the project path   A benefit of using this method is that since it uses the currect project s directory  it matters not if you are working from a debug directory or a release directory   public string DirProject         string DirDebug   System IO Directory GetCurrentDirectory        string DirProject   DirDebug       for  int counter slash   0  counter slash  lt  4  counter slash                  DirProject   DirProject Substring 0  DirProject LastIndexOf                    return DirProject      You would then be able to call it whenever you want  using only one line   string MyProjectDir   DirProject      This should work in most cases

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If a project is running on an IIS express  the Environment CurrentDirectory could point to where IIS Express is located   the default path would be C  Program Files  x86  IIS Express    not to where your project resides     This is probably the most suitable directory path for various kinds of projects   AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory   This is the MSDN definition      Gets the base directory that the assembly resolver uses to probe for assemblies

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This will also give you the project directory by navigating two levels up from the current executing directory  this won t return the project directory for every build  but this is the most common    System IO Path GetFullPath              Of course you would want to contain this inside some sort of validation error handling logic

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Try   var pathRegex   new Regex     bin   x86   x64     Debug Release     RegexOptions Compiled   var directory   pathRegex Replace Directory GetCurrentDirectory    String Empty     This is solution different from the others does also take into account possible x86 or x64 build

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Yet another imperfect solution  but perhaps a little closer to perfect than some of the others        protected static string GetSolutionFSPath             return System IO Directory GetParent System IO Directory GetCurrentDirectory    Parent Parent FullName            protected static string GetProjectFSPath             return String Format   0    1    GetSolutionFSPath    System Reflection Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   GetName   Name           This version will return the current projects  folder even if the current project is not the Startup Project for the solution   The first flaw with this is that I ve skipped all error checking  That can be fixed easy enough but should only be a problem if you re storing your project in the root directory for the drive or using a junction in your path  and that junction is a descendant of the solution folder  so this scenario is unlikely  I m not entirely sure that Visual Studio could handle either of these setups anyway   Another  more likely  problem that you may run into is that the project name must match the folder name for the project for it to be found   Another problem you may have is that the project must be inside the solution folder  This usually isn t a problem but if you ve used the Add Existing Project to Solution option to add the project to the solution then this may not be the way your solution is organized   Lastly  if you re application will be modifying the working directory  you should store this value before you do that because this value is determined relative to the current working directory    Of course  this all also means that you must not alter the default values for your projects  Build- Output path or Debug- Working directory options in the project properties dialog

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The best solution  string PjFolder1       Directory GetParent AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory           Parent Parent FullName    Other solution    string pjFolder2   Path GetDirectoryName Path GetDirectoryName Path GetDirectoryName                  System Reflection Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   GetName   CodeBase       Test it  AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory worked for me on past project  now I get debug folder      the selected GOOD answer just NOT WORK      Project DEBUG folder  but STILL PROJECT FOLDER string pjDebugFolder   AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory     Visual studio folder  NOT PROJECT FOLDER   This solutions just not work string vsFolder   Directory GetCurrentDirectory    string vsFolder2   Environment CurrentDirectory  string vsFolder3   Path GetFullPath               Current PROJECT FOLDER string ProjectFolder          Get Debug Folder object from BaseDirectory   the same with end slash      Directory GetParent pjDebugFolder       Parent   Bin Folder object     Parent    Project Folder object     FullName   Project Folder complete path

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Another way to do this   string startupPath   System IO Directory GetParent        FullName    If you want to get path to bin folder  string startupPath   System IO Directory GetParent         FullName    Maybe there are better way

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Use this to get the Project directory  worked for me    string projectPath        Directory GetParent Directory GetCurrentDirectory    Parent FullName

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I am amazed by the haphazardness of all of the solutions posted so far  The one and only proper way to get the root folder of a C  project is to leverage the  CallerFilePath  attribute to obtain the full path name of a source file  and then subtract the filename plus extension from it  leaving you with the path to the project  Here is how to actually do it  In the root folder of your project  add a file with the following content  internal static class ProjectSourcePath       private const  string  myRelativePath   nameof ProjectSourcePath     quot  cs quot       private static string  lazyValue      public  static string  Value   gt  lazyValue     calculatePath         private static string calculatePath                 string pathName   GetSourceFilePathName            Assert  pathName EndsWith  myRelativePath  Sys StringComparison Ordinal              return pathName Substring  0  pathName Length - myRelativePath Length               The string  requires a pretty late version of C  with  nullable enable  if you don t have it  then just remove the    The Assert   function is my own  replace it with your own  The function GetSourceFilePathName   is defined as follows  using System Runtime CompilerServices      public static string GetSourceFilePathName   CallerFilePath  string  callerFilePath   null                gt  callerFilePath     quot  quot    Once you have this  you can use it as follows  string projectSourcePath   ProjectSourcePath Value

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I know this post is very old  I was actually looking for a solution to this myself  Some of the solutions posted work but they re pretty long so I decided to write my own version  Directory GetParent  quot         quot    Basically what it does is       will leave you in the same directory you are currently in      in this context  the directory seperator       will move you one directory back  2x   GetParent     get the parent folder of          Combining all this together will leave you with  C  Users Oushima Desktop Homework OoP Assignment 1 part 1    part 1 being my project folder   This is what worked for me  It s very similar to  Parent Parent but shorter  I hope this will help someone else out  If you want it to 100  return a string datatype then you can put  FullName behind it  Oh  and  don t forget the using System IO  C  reference

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using System  using System IO      This will get the current WORKING directory  i e   bin Debug  string workingDirectory   Environment CurrentDirectory     or  Directory GetCurrentDirectory   gives the same result     This will get the current PROJECT bin directory  ie    bin   string projectDirectory   Directory GetParent workingDirectory  Parent FullName      This will get the current PROJECT directory string projectDirectory   Directory GetParent workingDirectory  Parent Parent FullName

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Try this  its simple  HttpContext Current Server MapPath    FolderName

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Directory GetParent Directory GetCurrentDirectory    Parent Parent Parent Parent FullName  Will give you the project directory

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You can try one of this two methods   string startupPath   System IO Directory GetCurrentDirectory     string startupPath   Environment CurrentDirectory    Tell me  which one seems to you better

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using System  using System IO      Get the current directory and make it a DirectoryInfo object     Do not use Environment CurrentDirectory  vistual studio     and visual studio code will return different result     Visual studio will return   projectDir bin Release netcoreapp2 0    yet     vs code will return   projectDir   var currentDirectory   new DirectoryInfo AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory       On windows  the current directory is the compiled binary sits     so string like   bin Release netcoreapp2 0   will follow the project directory      Hense  the project directory is the great grand-father of the current directory  string projectDirectory   currentDirectory Parent Parent Parent FullName

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Based on Gucu112 s answer  but for  NET Core Console Window application  it should be   string projectDir        Path GetFullPath Path Combine AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory                   I m using this in a xUnit project for a  NET Core Window Application

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This solution works well for me  on Develop and also on TEST and PROD servers with ASP NET MVC5 via C    var projectDir   Path GetDirectoryName AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory     If you need project directory in project configuration file use     ProjectDir

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If you really want to ensure you get the source project directory  no matter what the bin output path is set to    Add a pre-build event command line  Visual Studio  Project properties -  Build Events     echo   MSBuildProjectDirectory   gt    MSBuildProjectDirectory  Resources ProjectDirectory txt Add the ProjectDirectory txt file to the Resources resx of the project  If it doesn t exist yet  right click project -  Add new item -  Resources file  Access from code with Resources ProjectDirectory

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After I had finally finished polishing my first answer regarding the us of public strings to derive an answer  it dawned on me that you could probably read a value from the registry to get your desired result   As it turns out  that route was even shorter   First  you must include the Microsoft Win32 namespace so you can work with the registry   using Microsoft Win32        required for reading and   or writing the registry   Here is the main code   RegistryKey Projects Key   Registry CurrentUser OpenSubKey   SOFTWARE Microsoft VisualStudio 9 0   false   string DirProject    string Projects Key GetValue   DefaultNewProjectLocation      A note on this answer   I am using Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition   If you are using another version   i e  2003  2005  2010  etc    then you mayt have to modify the  version  part of the SubKey string  i e  8 0  7 0  etc     If you use one of my answers  and if it is not too much to ask  then I would like to know which of my methods you used and why   Good luck     dm

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If you want ot know what is the directory where your solution is located  you need to do this    var parent   Directory GetParent Directory GetCurrentDirectory    Parent              if  parent    null                                var directoryInfo   parent Parent                  string startDirectory   null                  if  directoryInfo    null                                        startDirectory   directoryInfo FullName                                    if  startDirectory    null                      Do whatever you want  startDirectory  variable                    If you let only with GetCurrrentDirectory   method  you get the build folder no matter if you are debugging or releasing  I hope this help  If you forget about validations it would be like this   var startDirectory   Directory GetParent Directory GetCurrentDirectory    Parent Parent FullName

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I was looking for this too  I ve got a project that runs HWC  and I d like to keep the web site out of the app tree  but I don t want to keep it in the debug  or release  directory  FWIW  the accepted solution  and this one as well  only identifies the directory the executable is running in    To find that directory  I ve been using   string startupPath   System IO Path GetFullPath

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I have used following solution to get the job done   string projectDir       Path GetFullPath Path Combine AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory

[c#] How do you get the current project directory from C# code when creating a custom MSBuild task?

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