Question

I have code that reads encrypted credentials from a text file. I updated that text file to include a connection string. Everything else is read and decrypted fine, but not the connection string (naturally, I updated my code accordingly, too).

So I got to wondering: is it reading the correct file. The answer: No! The file in \bin\debug is dated 6/5/2012 9:41 am, but this code:

using (StreamReader reader = File.OpenText("Credentials.txt")) {
    string line = null;
    MessageBox.Show(File.GetCreationTime("Credentials.txt").ToString());

…shows 6/4/2012 2:00:44 pm

So I searched my hard drive for all instances of “Credentials.txt” to see where it was reading the file from. It only found one instance, the one with today’s date in \bin\debug.

???

Note: Credentials.txt is not a part of my solution; should it be? (IOW, I simply copied it into \bin\debug, I didn’t perform an “Add | Existing Item”)

Answer 1

Provided you don’t change the current directory, the file in bin\Debug is going to be the one being read, as you’re not specifying a full path.

The problem is likely due to the differences between the different File dates. The Creation Date (which is what you are fetching and displaying as 6/4 @ 2:00:44pm) is likely different from the Date modified (which is what is shown by default in Windows Explorer). This date can be fetched using File.GetLastWriteTime instead of GetCreationTime.

That being said, I would recommend using the full path to the file, and not assuming that the current directory is the same as the executable path. Specifying the full path (which can be determined based on the executable path) will be safer, and less likely to cause problems later. This can be done via:

var exePath = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location);
var file = System.IO.Path.Combine(exePath, "Credentials.txt");
using (StreamReader reader = File.OpenText(file)) { // ...