Question

Is there any difference between Server.MapPath() and HostingEnvironment.MapPath()? Does Server.MapPath() have any advantages over HostingEnvironment.MapPath()?

My original problem was mapping the file path on a server when the HttpContext is not present and I cannot pass a Server variable from Global.asax to my method.

I used HostingEnvironment.MapPath() instead since it doesn’t need HttpContext. Are there any situations when these two methods will give different results?

Answer 1

Server.MapPath() eventually calls HostingEnvironment.MapPath(), but it creates a VirtualPath object with specific options:

The VirtualPath object passed to HostingEnvironment.MapPath() is constructed like this:

VirtualPath.Create(path, VirtualPathOptions.AllowAllPath|VirtualPathOptions.AllowNull);

Edit: in reality, the only difference is that you are allowed to pass null to Server.MapPath(), but not to HostingEnvironment.MapPath()