Visual Studio C How to Specify Relative Resource Path For Final Build-CodePudding

I already know how to set a relative working directory path and access resources inside of visual studio. However, when I build my solution and move the exe to a separate file I have to include all the resources in the same directory as the exe. I'd prefer to have a folder with said resources alongside the exe to keep things clean. Is there a macro I need to use? Is the working directory the right setting to change for this?

example

Sorry for this incredibly basic question, but I think I lack the vocabulary to accurately describe the issue.

CodePudding user response：

For a Windows solution, GetModuleFileName to find the exact path of your EXE. Then a simple string manipulation to make a resource path string.

When you program starts, you can use this to ascertain the full path of your EXE.

std::string pathToExe(MAX_PATH, '\0');
GetModuleFileName(nullptr, szPathToExe.data(), MAX_PATH); // #include <windows.h> to get this function declared

On return, szPathToExe will be something like "C:\\Path\\To\\Your\\Program\\Circle.exe"

Then strip off the file name to get the absolute path

std::string resourceFolderPath = szPathToExe;
size_t pos = strPath.find_last_of("\\");
strPath = strPath.substr(0, pos 1); // 1 to include the backslash

Then append your resource folder name and optionally another trailing backslash.

resourceFolderPath  = "res\\";

Then change all your I/O calls to open files relative to resourceFolderPath

You should probably add reasonable error checking to the above code such as validating the return code from GetModuleFileName and find_last_of calls.