Question

In one of my controller actions I need to read in a text file that has a bunch of reference data in it. Right now I simply put it in the “/Content” directory.

My questions are:

1. Is this the “right” place to put this file or should I put it in another directory?
2. What is the best way to read in a text file in asp.net-mvc that is sitting on the server?

Answer 1

If the file should not be directly available via URL, you should put it in App_Data.

For reading it, just use:

var fileContents = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(Server.MapPath(@"~/App_Data/file.txt"));