C# Environment

last modified July 5, 2023

In this article we show how to work environment and platform in C#.

The Environment type provides information about the current environment and platform in C#. It is located in the System namespace.

C# system information

In the following example we print some system information.

Program.cs

var osv = Environment.OSVersion;

Console.WriteLine($“OS: {osv.Platform}”); Console.WriteLine($“Version: {osv.Version}”); Console.WriteLine($“OS & version: {osv.VersionString}”);

string userName = Environment.UserName; string userDomName = Environment.UserDomainName;

Console.WriteLine($“User name: {userName}”); Console.WriteLine($“User domain name: {userDomName}”);

The example prints the OS name and version, user name, and user domain name.

var osv = Environment.OSVersion;

The Environment.OsVersion property gets the current platform identifier and version number.

$ dotnet run OS: Unix Version: 5.15.0.48 OS & version: Unix 5.15.0.48 User name: jano User domain name: andromeda

C# common directories

In the next example, we print some common system directories.

Program.cs

string curDir = Environment.CurrentDirectory; string deskDir = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop); string myMusicDir = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyMusic); string addDataDir = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData); string userProfDir = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.UserProfile); string myPictDir = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyPictures);

Console.WriteLine($“Current directory: {curDir}”); Console.WriteLine($“Desktop directory: {deskDir}”); Console.WriteLine($“My Music directory: {myMusicDir}”); Console.WriteLine($“Application data directory: {addDataDir}”); Console.WriteLine($“User profile directory: {userProfDir}”); Console.WriteLine($“My Pictures directory: {myPictDir}”);

The example shows some common directories, including Desktop, My Music, Application Data, User Profile, and My Pictures.

$ dotnet run Current directory: /home/jano/Documents/prog/csharp/environment/EnvironmentEx Desktop directory: /home/jano/Desktop My Music directory: /home/jano/Music Application data directory: /home/jano/.config User profile directory: /home/jano My Pictures directory: /home/jano/Pictures

C# command line arguments

The next example prints command line arguments.

Program.cs

string cline = Environment.CommandLine; Console.WriteLine(cline);

string[] cargs = Environment.GetCommandLineArgs();

foreach (var arg in cargs) { Console.WriteLine(arg); }

The Environment.CommandLine returns a string of command line arguments. To get an array of arguments, we use the Environment.GetCommandLineArgs method.

$ dotnet run “John Doe” gardener 34 /home/jano/Documents/prog/csharp/environment/EnvironmentEx/bin/Debug/net6.0/EnvironmentEx.dll “John Doe” gardener 34 /home/jano/Documents/prog/csharp/environment/EnvironmentEx/bin/Debug/net6.0/EnvironmentEx.dll John Doe gardener 34

C# environment variables

We can also retrieve environment variables.

Program.cs

using System.Collections;

string? user = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable(“USER”); Console.WriteLine(user);

string? shell = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable(“SHELL”); Console.WriteLine(shell);

string? home = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable(“HOME”); Console.WriteLine(home);

var envs = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariables(); foreach (DictionaryEntry de in envs) { Console.WriteLine($"{de.Key}: {de.Value}"); }

We can get a specific environment varialbe with GetEnvironmentVariable. To retrieve all variables, we use GetEnvironmentVariables.

$ dotnet run jano /bin/bash /home/jano CLUTTER_IM_MODULE: ibus SDKMAN_VERSION: 5.16.0 PANEL_GDK_CORE_DEVICE_EVENTS: 0 MICRONAUT_HOME: /home/jano/.sdkman/candidates/micronaut/current LC_PAPER: sk_SK.UTF-8 …

Source

Environment class - language reference

In this article we worked with Environment in C#.

Author

My name is Jan Bodnar, and I am a passionate programmer with extensive programming experience. I have been writing programming articles since 2007. To date, I have authored over 1,400 articles and 8 e-books. I possess more than ten years of experience in teaching programming.

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