How can I get access to the IWebHostEnvironment from within an ASP.NET Core 3 controller?

Question

I would like to be able to browse a directory in the web root (such as my \img directory or \pdf directory) from code within a controller.

I would like to use something like the following where env is an instance of IWebHostEnvironment:

var provider = env.WebRootFileProvider;
var path = env.WebRootPath;

I'm not sure how to get an instance of IWebHostEnvironment from within a controller. How can this be done?

Answer 1

You can use dependency injection to inject an IWebHostEnvironment instance into your controller. Either in the constructor:

public class MyController : Controller
{
    private readonly IWebHostEnvironment _env;
    public MyController(IWebHostEnvironment env)
    {
        _env = env;
    }
}

or in any or the controller's method:

public class MyController : Controller
{
    [HttpGet]
    public IActionResult Me([FromServices] IWebHostEnvironment env)
    {
        return View();
    }
}

Note that the default WebRootFileProvider points to the wwwroot folder, so you need to ensure it exists, otherwise you'll get a NullFileProvider.