Assembly::GetExecutingAssembly()->Location now throws ArgumentException: Illegal characters in path

Question

In a node.js native addon in Visual Studio 2010 (and .Net 4) I could use

System::Reflection::Assembly::GetExecutingAssembly()->Location

to get the path of the running C++/CLI assembly, but in a node.js addon in Visual Studio 2015 project (and .Net 4.6), I get an exception:

System.ArgumentException: Illegal characters in path.
   at System.IO.Path.CheckInvalidPathChars(String path, Boolean checkAdditional)
   at System.Security.Permissions.FileIOPermission.CheckIllegalCharacters(
      String[] str)
   at System.Security.Permissions.FileIOPermission.AddPathList(
      FileIOPermissionAccess access, AccessControlActions control,
      String[] pathListOrig, Boolean checkForDuplicates,
      Boolean needFullPath, Boolean copyPathList)
   at System.Security.Permissions.FileIOPermission..ctor(
      FileIOPermissionAccess access, String path)
   at System.Reflection.RuntimeAssembly.get_Location()

Any idea how to get the path of the running assembly?

Edit 2018-01-25 This is still not resolved with Visual Studio 2017, this time trying .Net 4.5.2

Answer 1

Although the Location property throws, CodeBase can still be used, which returns something like:

file://?/C:/.../my-addon.node

And that would explain the illegal character: The '?'

A new Uri(Application.CodeBase).LocalPath will return

/?/C:/.../my-addon.node

so a workaround for GetExecutingAssembly()->Location could be:

String^ GetExecutingAssemblyLocation()
{
  try
  {
    return Path::GetDirectoryName(Assembly::GetExecutingAssembly()->Location);
  }
  catch (Exception^ e)
  {
    String^ codeBase = Assembly::GetExecutingAssembly()->CodeBase;
    if (codeBase->StartsWith("file://?/"))
    {
      Uri^ codeBaseUri = gcnew Uri("file://" + codeBase->Substring(8));
      return codeBaseUri->LocalPath;
    }
    else
      throw;
  }
}

which will return

C:\...\my-addon.node