Share Your Knowledge! -- Create and submit your articles the easy way with WebWriter.

Updated: 10:21 PM CT Feb 13, 2007 Posted: 10:20 PM CT Feb 13, 2007 PathHelper - Convert File and Folder Paths and URLs in an ASP.NET Application Absolute, virtual, physical and application relative paths and their conversion Author: Steve Lautenschlager Has Downloads Has Images Snippet C# .NET 1.1 ASP.NET     Prev     1    2     Next    Downloads PathHelperClass - 33.6 KB - ASP.NET 1.1 Solution containing PathHelper Class.ASP.NET 1.1 DLL - 5.0 KB - A compiled version of the PathHelper assembly  Summary The ASP.NET developer is constantly needing to manage file, folder and webpage references in .NET. This can be a tedious task. Page 1: First I will present a standard set of definitions so that we know what we mean when use words like "absolute path", "relative path", "physical path", "application path", etc. Page 2: Then I will present some of the code to retrieve and manage this information. Download: For the full PathHelper class which makes managing paths as easy as pie, download the sample solution above.  Definitions I will talk primarily about 4 types of paths: Absolute URL Virtual URL Physical Path Application Relative Path I will get lazy sometimes and drop the 'URL' or 'Path' part and simply refer to them as Absolute Virtual Physical Application Absolute URL: The absolute URL is is the fully qualified URL beginning with the scheme (ie. http, ftp, file, etc.) For more on the Anatomy of a URL click here. So, some examples of absolute URLs are: http://www.cambiaresearch.com http://www.cambiaresearch.com/c4/CategoryIndex.aspx http://www.cambiaresearch.com/c4/ Virtual URL: A virtual URL begins with a slash "/" and represents the root of the website. It is everything that follows the domain. In URL parlance it is the path, query and fragment of a URI. Virtual URLs are _not_ relative URLs. Virtual URLs are based on the root of the website. Some examples of virtual URLs are: / /Default.aspx /c4/CategoryIndex.aspx /c4/ /c4/Categories.aspx?category=Article+Type%7cSnippet Physical Path: The term physical path describes a fully qualified Windows-type path name that begins with a drive letter or network address and points to a specific folder or file on a computer or network. Some examples of physical paths: C:\Inetpub\wwwroot C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\myweb\myapp\Default.aspx C:\Documents and Settings\steve\My Documents\My Pictures\black.png \\oak\PublicFolders\Steve \\oak\PublicFolders\Steve\Blue6.htm Application Relative Path: Application path is a path that is relative to the current ASP.NET application folder. In ASP.NET 2.0 the tilda (~) was introduced to indicate an application relative path, but no such help exists in ASP.NET 1.1 and earlier. Note that an application relative path can represent both a URL and a physical path by pointing to a folder or file. To have a valid URL or physical file one would need to convert the application path to the appropriate type using the PathHelper class I provide. Some examples of application relative paths: Categories.aspx?category=Article+Type%7cSnippet ArticleIndex.aspx styles/wscms.css Okay, that's it for definitions. If you've worked with this stuff you know how important it is to know what you mean be certain words. On the next page, I will show you some code for retrieving and converting some of these different path types.     Prev     1    2     Next