CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netlinuxprocesspath
cli2
cli2

Reputation: 249

C# under Linux, WorkingDirectory not working properly

I have an issues with WorkingDirectory, and it is not setting the desired path correctly. I wrote a simple hello world test program, a.out, to try out WorkingDirectory. And the directory hierarchy is such:

/home/cli2/test
   /bin/Debug/netcoreapp2.1/subdir/
      a.out
   /obj
   Program.cs
   test.csproj

I have the following settings for the Process class

process.StartInfo.FileName = "a.out"
process.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
process.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location) + "/subdir/";

When I execute dotnet run, I would get an error of:

Unhandled Exception: System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: No such file or directory

The issue that confuses me is that if I move a.out to the top directory such that: 

/home/cli2/project
   /bin/Debug/netcoreapp2.1/subdir/
   /obj
   Program.cs
   test.csproj
   a.out

While having the same StartInfo settings, process.start() executes the hello world program without error. Furthermore, if I change FileName = "ls" with the original subdirectory hierarchy, it does print out a.out. For that case the WorkingDirectory is behaving as expected. So I do understand this discrepancy and why I cannot call a.out in a different directory.

Also I have tried both absolute and relative path for WorkingDirectory, neither works when I call a.out.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 4161

Answers (1)

Luke
Luke

Reputation: 183

The meaning of process.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory in this case is not the location of the executable.

That is what's causing the behavior your are experiencing, and the meaning process.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory changes based on the value of process.StartInfo.UseShellExecute.

From the Microsoft documentation:

The WorkingDirectory property behaves differently when UseShellExecute is true than when UseShellExecute is false.

When UseShellExecute is false, the WorkingDirectory property is not used to find the executable. Instead, its value applies to the process that is started and only has meaning within the context of the new process.

The default value for UseShellExecute in dotnet core is false. I have experienced strange things when setting UseShellExecute to true on Linux.

Personally, I would keep it false and make sure to use the full path or a path relative to the project root directory like this:

process.StartInfo.FileName="bin/Debug/netcoreapp2.1/subdir/a.out";

Upvotes: 5

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