Environment.CurrentDirectory Property

Definition

Gets or sets the fully qualified path of the current working directory.

C#
public static string CurrentDirectory { get; set; }

Property Value

The directory path.

Exceptions

Attempted to set to an empty string ("").

Attempted to set to null.

An I/O error occurred.

Attempted to set a local path that cannot be found.

The caller does not have the appropriate permission.

Examples

The following example demonstrates setting the CurrentDirectory property.

C#
using System;
using System.IO;

public class Example
{
   public static void Main()
   {
      if (Environment.OSVersion.Platform == PlatformID.Win32NT)
      {
         // Change the directory to %WINDIR%
         Environment.CurrentDirectory = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("windir");
         DirectoryInfo info = new DirectoryInfo(".");

         Console.WriteLine("Directory Info:   " + info.FullName);
      }
      else
      {
         Console.WriteLine("This example runs on Windows only.");
      }
   }
}
// The example displays output like the following on a .NET implementation running on Windows:
//        Directory Info:   C:\windows
// The example displays the following output on a .NET implementation on Unix-based systems:
//        This example runs on Windows only.

Remarks

By definition, if this process starts in the root directory of a local or network drive, the value of this property is the drive name followed by a trailing slash (for example, "C:\"). If this process starts in a subdirectory, the value of this property is the drive and subdirectory path, without a trailing slash (for example, "C:\mySubDirectory").

Applies to

Product Versions
.NET Core 2.0, Core 2.1, Core 2.2, Core 3.0, Core 3.1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
.NET Framework 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 4.5.1, 4.5.2, 4.6, 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.7.1, 4.7.2, 4.8, 4.8.1
.NET Standard 2.0, 2.1