How to navigate a few folders up?

Question

One option would be to do System.IO.Directory.GetParent() a few times. Is there a more graceful way of travelling a few folders up from where the executing assembly resides?

What I am trying to do is find a text file that resides one folder above the application folder. But the assembly itself is inside the bin, which is a few folders deep in the application folder.

usually a relative path does the trick like '..\..\..\..\Downfolder' but it depends on what exactly you're trying to do this for...? — DiskJunky, Feb 15 '13 at 16:52
"Navigate" how? Do you mean the current directory? If so, you should be able to do `Directory.SetCurrentDirectory(@"..\..\..\..");` — Peter Ritchie, Feb 15 '13 at 16:53

A-Sharabiani · Answer 1 · 2022-03-30T21:15:59.740

300

Other simple way is to do this:

string path = @"C:\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Folder4";
string newPath = Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(path, @"..\..\"));

Note This goes two levels up. The result would be: newPath = @"C:\Folder1\Folder2\";

Additional Note Path.GetFullPath normalizes the final result based on what environment your code is running on windows/mac/mobile/...

edited Mar 30 '22 at 21:15

answered Jun 17 '15 at 21:29

A-Sharabiani

17,750
17
113
128

52

There is no point using `Path.Combine` when you are adding backslash manually anyway. Consider using `Path.Combine(path, "..", "..")` instead. – AXMIM Apr 06 '19 at 19:12
2

@AXMIM using GetFullPath will return the absolute path, it makes a difference in most situation. Try entering the above code in CodeBunk and see the result would be different if not using GetFullPath, and in most cases might cause bugs. – A-Sharabiani Oct 13 '20 at 23:53
Will that work for any OS or only for some specific that use backslash in paths, e.g., Windows? – alcohol is evil Jun 23 '21 at 09:27
@alcoholisevil I've tested in on Windows, not sure about Mac, I guess it should work on mac as well. (getFullPath should normalize path string for each environment/os) – A-Sharabiani Jun 24 '21 at 00:57
2

You can also combine them (and would be better probably): `Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(path, "..", ".."))` – Camilo Terevinto Mar 06 '22 at 21:58
This answer should be updated to the commented one using combine rather than the backslashes. The backslash one didn't work for me. – Adam B Jul 11 '22 at 17:15

score 48 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 11 '19 at 07:00

if c:\folder1\folder2\folder3\bin is the path then the following code will return the path base folder of bin folder

//string directory=System.IO.Directory.GetParent(Environment.CurrentDirectory).ToString());

string directory=System.IO.Directory.GetParent(Environment.CurrentDirectory).ToString();

ie,c:\folder1\folder2\folder3

if you want folder2 path then you can get the directory by

string directory = System.IO.Directory.GetParent(System.IO.Directory.GetParent(Environment.CurrentDirectory).ToString()).ToString();

then you will get path as c:\folder1\folder2\

score 14 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 18 '18 at 13:22

14

You can use ..\path to go one level up, ..\..\path to go two levels up from path.

You can use Path class too.

C# Path class

edited Mar 18 '18 at 13:22

Loofer

6,841
9
61
102

answered Feb 15 '13 at 16:52

DotNetUser

6,494
1
25
27

score 9 · Answer 4 · answered May 21 '14 at 09:54

This is what worked best for me:

string parentOfStartupPath = Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(Application.StartupPath, @"../"));

Getting the 'right' path wasn't the problem, adding '../' obviously does that, but after that, the given string isn't usable, because it will just add the '../' at the end. Surrounding it with Path.GetFullPath() will give you the absolute path, making it usable.

Olivier Jacot-Descombes · Answer 5 · 2023-01-18T14:30:37.433

The following method searches a file beginning with the application startup path (*.exe folder). If the file is not found there, the parent folders are searched until either the file is found or the root folder has been reached. null is returned if the file was not found.

public static FileInfo FindApplicationFile(string fileName)
{
    string startPath = Path.Combine(Application.StartupPath, fileName);
    FileInfo file = new FileInfo(startPath);
    while (!file.Exists) {
        if (file.Directory.Parent == null) {
            return null;
        }
        DirectoryInfo parentDir = file.Directory.Parent;
        file = new FileInfo(Path.Combine(parentDir.FullName, file.Name));
    }
    return file;
}

Note: Application.StartupPath is usually used in WinForms applications, but it works in console applications as well; however, you will have to set a reference to the System.Windows.Forms assembly. You can replace Application.StartupPath by
Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location) if you prefer.

I use this strategy to find configuration and resource files. This allows me to share them for multiple applications or for Debug and Release versions of an application by placing them in a common parent folder.

score 6 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 07 '20 at 07:46

6

public static string AppRootDirectory()
        {
            string _BaseDirectory = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;
            return Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(_BaseDirectory, @"..\..\"));
        }

answered Nov 07 '20 at 07:46

R M Shahidul Islam Shahed

1,178
13
13

score 5 · Answer 7 · edited Mar 02 '17 at 16:24

Maybe you could use a function if you want to declare the number of levels and put it into a function?

private String GetParents(Int32 noOfLevels, String currentpath)
{
     String path = "";
     for(int i=0; i< noOfLevels; i++)
     {
         path += @"..\";
     }
     path += currentpath;
     return path;
}

And you could call it like this:

String path = this.GetParents(4, currentpath);

score 5 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 28 '20 at 18:17

5

C#

string upTwoDir = Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(System.AppContext.BaseDirectory, @"..\..\"));

answered Jan 28 '20 at 18:17

moberme

669
7
13

Dominik · Answer 9 · 2021-08-23T17:58:13.103

Hiding a looped call to Directory.GetParent(path) inside an static method is the way to go.

Messing around with ".." and Path.Combine will ultimately lead to bugs related to the operation system or simply fail due to mix up between relative paths and absolute paths.

public static class PathUtils
{
    public static string MoveUp(string path, int noOfLevels)
    {
        string parentPath = path.TrimEnd(new[] { '/', '\\' });
        for (int i=0; i< noOfLevels; i++)
        {
            parentPath = Directory.GetParent(parentPath ).ToString();
        }
        return parentPath;
    }
}

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 20 '15 at 12:35

1

this may help

string parentOfStartupPath = Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(Application.StartupPath, @"../../")) + "Orders.xml";
if (File.Exists(parentOfStartupPath))
{
    // file found
}

answered Jul 20 '15 at 12:35

Thomas

33,544
126
357
626

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered May 06 '18 at 19:07

1

If you know the folder you want to navigate to, find the index of it then substring.

            var ind = Directory.GetCurrentDirectory().ToString().IndexOf("Folderame");

            string productFolder = Directory.GetCurrentDirectory().ToString().Substring(0, ind);

answered May 06 '18 at 19:07

Taran

2,895
25
22

2

This fails in **so many** cases. What if the name of the folder is just `a`, for example? What if the path looks like this `C:\Folderame3\Folderame2\Folderame\...`? – 41686d6564 stands w. Palestine May 06 '18 at 19:24
if folder name is just a search "\\a\\" or \\a if its last – Taran May 07 '18 at 03:03

score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Jan 20 '19 at 01:12

I have some virtual directories and I cannot use Directory methods. So, I made a simple split/join function for those interested. Not as safe though.

var splitResult = filePath.Split(new[] {'/', '\\'}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
var newFilePath = Path.Combine(filePath.Take(splitResult.Length - 1).ToArray());

So, if you want to move 4 up, you just need to change the 1 to 4 and add some checks to avoid exceptions.

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Sep 01 '22 at 09:15

Path parsing via System.IO.Directory.GetParent is possible, but would require to run same function multiple times.

Slightly simpler approach is to threat path as a normal string, split it by path separator, take out what is not necessary and then recombine string back.

var upperDir = String.Join(Path.DirectorySeparatorChar, dir.Split(Path.DirectorySeparatorChar).SkipLast(2));

Of course you can replace 2 with amount of levels you need to jump up.

Notice also that this function call to Path.GetFullPath (other answers in here) will query whether path exists using file system. Using basic string operation does not require any file system operations.

How to navigate a few folders up?

13 Answers13

Linked

Related