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I have a C++ program not reading an absolute path in Visual Studio.

The following code works on my desktop environment (Windows 7, Visual Studio 2010, 64 bit). However, on my macbook, I am running bootcamp and/or VMware for a Windows 7 64 bit virtual machine that has the exact same Visual Studio 2010.

My attempts at fixing this problem:

  1. I made sure that the absolute path is the same on my macbook as it is on the desktop. I further made double sure that I installed the third party library to read my wave file in the same fashion as I did for the desktop twice.

  2. I rewrote the program that run on the desktop, reinstalled the library on my macbook. Simpler program works on desktop, but alas, still failed to read absolute path on macbook.

  3. I moved the wav file so not to be a path, but in the actual project solution itself. No change.

  4. Google.

I include the code at the bottom, for your benefit. I used libsndfile library to read a wav file. I may just try to use my very old crappy Windows laptop, but would can't understand what could be going wrong on my macbook VM machine. 

// WaveReader.cpp : main project file.

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sndfile.h>

using namespace System;

int main(array<System::String ^> ^args)
{
    Console::WriteLine(L"Hello World");
    SNDFILE *sf; 
    SF_INFO info; 

    /*Open the wav file. */
    info.format = 0;
    sf = sf_open("C:\\Users\\geekyomega\\gameover.wav",SFM_READ,&info);
    if (sf == NULL)
    {
        printf("Failed to open the file.\n");
        getchar();
        exit(-1);
    }

}

My output, when I run this program is

Failed to open the file

As always, thank you for reading through this question. I deeply would appreciate any help, assistance, or wisdom any of you would have. Especially if you encountered a similar problem.

Warm Regards, GeekyOmega

GeekyOmega
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    Try running [Process Monitor](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx?ppud=4) and set the filter to 'Process Name' includes 'WaveReader' which should show you exactly which files or directories it's trying to open – the_mandrill Oct 29 '12 at 16:33
  • Do you have permissions to read geekyomega folder in the VM? Are you logged in as anyone other than geekyomega on the VM. Do you perhaps need to run the debugger as an administrator? – 8bitwide Oct 29 '12 at 16:37
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    That's a pretty strange location for a file. Surely it belongs in your Documents or Music folder? Just plain forgetting to copy the file from one machine to another would be a classic mistake. Use Environment::GetFolderPath() to avoid hard-coding paths. – Hans Passant Oct 29 '12 at 17:35
  • I think it had something to do with permissions. Also, Hans is completely right. I never recommend doing absolute paths for anything. The code was meant as proof of concept for me to port over to a GUI where I had a class/method for that already there. – GeekyOmega Nov 02 '12 at 04:41

1 Answers1

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It turned out to be related to permissions. Also, Hans Passant is right in that absolute paths are not good coding practice. This was meant as a proof of concept, so please let me off on that technicality.

Regards, GeekyOmega

GeekyOmega
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