ASP.NET How to change default data directory

Question

I have a project using an Access database. I go to data connections in VS and create a connection, I select the db which has a path of [my project folder]\app_data\stats.accdb and test the connection and it works fine, so I save it. VS then doesn't allow me to access the DB, it puts a red X on it under data connections in server explorer. When I go to modify the connection, the path has been changed to |DataDirectory|\stats.accdb.

This would be fine, but when I test the connection, it says Could not find the file 'c\program files\Microsoft visual studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\stats.accdb'

How to I change it so the |Data Directory| points to where the database is?

Answer 1

|DataDirectory| is a substitution string so you can configure the location of your database file separately.

For example:

// Set |DataDirectory| value

AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetData("DataDirectory", "C:\xxx");

// Connection String with |DataDirectory| substitution string

String STR = "Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=|DataDirectory|Student.accdb"; OleDbConnection connection = new OleDbConnection(STR);

For more information about |DataDirectory|, you can refer to this post: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1409378/11507778