Question

I have a web service with a svc file and a codebehind that defines a simple web service using WCF.

Obviously I am hosting the web service on a server using the svc file.

My service needs to access a file in the directory of the web application where the web service resides.

Consider that following structure:

Web application root folder: MyWebApp

MyWebApp (folder) -> Images (folder)

MyWebApp (folder) -> App_Code (folder)

MyWebApp (folder) -> WebServices (folder)

MyWebApp (folder) -> Data (folder)

MyWebApp (folder) -> Web.config (file)

MyWebApp (folder) -> WebServices (folder) -> MyWebService.svc (file)

MyWebApp (folder) -> App_Code (folder) -> MyWebService.cs (file)

MyWebApp (folder) -> Data (folder) -> myfile.txt

Well. From the csharp file codebehind web service file I would like to access the xml file located in the appropriate folder for data.

How should I do this??? I cannot have access to a Server object of course…

Thankyou

Answer 1

If you are hosting in IIS:

var root = HostingEnvironment.ApplicationPhysicalPath;
var someFile = Path.Combine(root, "images", "test.png");

Now of course this being said you should absolutely never write such code in a WCF service operation. You should have this service take the path as constructor argument and then simply configure your dependency injection framework to pass the correct value:

public class MyService1: IMyService
{
    private readonly string _path;
    public MyService1(string path)
    {
        _path = path;
    }

    public void SomeServiceOperation()
    {
        var someFile = Path.Combine(_path, "images", "test.png");
        // TODO: do something with the file
    }
}

Now all that’s left is to write a custom IInstanceProvider to wire up your dependency injection framework. This way the code of your service is no longer dependent on how/where is the service hosted. All that this service needs is a file path => inject it into it.