How to get relative path from absolute path

Question

There\'s a part in my apps that displays the file path loaded by the user through OpenFileDialog. It\'s taking up too much space to display the whole path, but I don\'t want

Answer 1

.NET Core 2.0 Answer

.NET Core 2.0 has Path.GetRelativePath which can be used like so:

var relativePath = Path.GetRelativePath(
    @"C:\Program Files\Dummy Folder\MyProgram",
    @"C:\Program Files\Dummy Folder\MyProgram\Data\datafile1.dat");

In the above example, the relativePath variable is equal to Data\datafile1.dat.

Alternative .NET Answer

@Dave's solution does not work when the file paths do not end with a forward slash character (/) which can happen if the path is a directory path. My solution fixes that problem and also makes use of the Uri.UriSchemeFile constant instead of hard coding "FILE".

/// 

/// Creates a relative path from one file or folder to another.
/// 
/// Contains the directory that defines the start of the relative path.
/// Contains the path that defines the endpoint of the relative path.
/// The relative path from the start directory to the end path.
///  or  is null.
/// 
/// 
public static string GetRelativePath(string fromPath, string toPath)
{
    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(fromPath))
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException("fromPath");
    }

    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(toPath))
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException("toPath");
    }

    Uri fromUri = new Uri(AppendDirectorySeparatorChar(fromPath));
    Uri toUri = new Uri(AppendDirectorySeparatorChar(toPath));

    if (fromUri.Scheme != toUri.Scheme)
    {
        return toPath;
    }

    Uri relativeUri = fromUri.MakeRelativeUri(toUri);
    string relativePath = Uri.UnescapeDataString(relativeUri.ToString());

    if (string.Equals(toUri.Scheme, Uri.UriSchemeFile, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
    {
        relativePath = relativePath.Replace(Path.AltDirectorySeparatorChar, Path.DirectorySeparatorChar);
    }

    return relativePath;
}

private static string AppendDirectorySeparatorChar(string path)
{
    // Append a slash only if the path is a directory and does not have a slash.
    if (!Path.HasExtension(path) &&
        !path.EndsWith(Path.DirectorySeparatorChar.ToString()))
    {
        return path + Path.DirectorySeparatorChar;
    }

    return path;
}

Windows Interop Answer

There is a Windows API called PathRelativePathToA that can be used to find a relative path. Please note that the file or directory paths that you pass to the function must exist for it to work.

var relativePath = PathExtended.GetRelativePath(
    @"C:\Program Files\Dummy Folder\MyProgram",
    @"C:\Program Files\Dummy Folder\MyProgram\Data\datafile1.dat");

public static class PathExtended
{
    private const int FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY = 0x10;
    private const int FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL = 0x80;
    private const int MaximumPath = 260;

    public static string GetRelativePath(string fromPath, string toPath)
    {
        var fromAttribute = GetPathAttribute(fromPath);
        var toAttribute = GetPathAttribute(toPath);

        var stringBuilder = new StringBuilder(MaximumPath);
        if (PathRelativePathTo(
            stringBuilder,
            fromPath,
            fromAttribute,
            toPath,
            toAttribute) == 0)
        {
            throw new ArgumentException("Paths must have a common prefix.");
        }

        return stringBuilder.ToString();
    }

    private static int GetPathAttribute(string path)
    {
        var directory = new DirectoryInfo(path);
        if (directory.Exists)
        {
            return FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY;
        }

        var file = new FileInfo(path);
        if (file.Exists)
        {
            return FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL;
        }

        throw new FileNotFoundException(
            "A file or directory with the specified path was not found.",
            path);
    }

    [DllImport("shlwapi.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    private static extern int PathRelativePathTo(
        StringBuilder pszPath,
        string pszFrom,
        int dwAttrFrom,
        string pszTo,
        int dwAttrTo);
}