Starting directory different between envFilePaths and probeForEnv.

[calvin-furano-dts]

There's a slightly confusing difference between using envFilePaths and probeForEnv.

When you specify envFilePaths, the paths are relative to the current directory (i.e. Directory.GetCurrentDirectory();). For example if I specify a relative path ..\.env it's one directory up from the current directory.

When you specify probeForEnv, it begins searching from AppContext.BaseDirectory. This isn't usually the same as the current directory. For example:

AppContext.BaseDirectory         => C:\MyApp\MyApp.Web\bin\Debug\net6.0\
Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()  => C:\MyApp\MyApp.Web\

So if I had a file C:\MyApp\.env using probeForEnv wouldn't find it (with the default 4 levels to search), but using the explicit path ..\.env would find it. I found this confusing until I looked at the source code.

[bolorundurowb]

@calvin-furano-dts you raise a good point, but the decision to use AppContext.BaseDirectory was an intentional one to always work from the location of the DLL as that is a consistent and predictable directory when compared with Directory.GetCurrentDirectory().

You can see better explanations of my point here