c# writing to a file without full path

Question

If I use this code

File.AppendAllText("C:/Users/Michael/Documents/Visual Studio 2010/Projects/PuzzleGame/PuzzleGame/PuzzleGameContent/player.TXT", "hi");

The file will save and add "hi" to the end of it. However, if I do something like this:

File.AppendAllText("player.TXT", "what is good?");

The file won't have a "what is good?" at the end of it. I can read files just fine using only the "player.TXT" filename but I can't write to a file using only that. Can anyone help me?

Answer 1

Your working directory is wherever the .exe is (unless you change it). So you see, when you compile, the exe ends up in the bin folder, so your player.txt would need to be there, not with your source.

edit: I bet you're appending to player.txt THEN you read it and that's why it worked fine, because you created a new one in your bin folder. Otherwise, read would not have worked. If you go in your bin folder and delete player.txt, your readfile shouldn't work.

Answer 2

Both forms are perfectly valid. The likely scenario is that your second version is simply writing to a file at a different location, because not specifying the path will default to the current directory.

If you don't include a path, you'll want to ensure the current directory is valid for accessing the file.