C++ Question Absolute Paths

[Max-Q]

So I am working on a project and need to use the ShellExecute() function to open a file (PDF) from inside my vessel’s code. It works just fine if I use an absolute path to the file, but that means it will only work in my orbiter install. The file is located in orbiter‘s Docs subfolder. I was wondering if there is any way to find the absolute path to the orbiter installation’s root directory when my vessel is loaded and dump it to a char* variable. To be clear, I am not trying to get orbiter to open the PDF, I want it to open in whatever application the user has set up to view PDFs by default.

Any help is appreciated,
Max-Q

 

[Urwumpe]

Did you look for a certain Windows API function already?

GetCurrentDirectory function (winbase.h) - Win32 apps

Retrieves the current directory for the current process.

docs.microsoft.com

 

[Max-Q]

Did you look for a certain Windows API function already?

GetCurrentDirectory function (winbase.h) - Win32 apps

Retrieves the current directory for the current process.

docs.microsoft.com

That looks promising!
Is there a document that describes the Windows C++ API like the orbiter one is documented? Sorry for the maybe dumb question, I am totally lost at C++ outside of the orbiter API.

 

[Urwumpe]

Is there a document that describes the Windows C++ API like the orbiter one is documented? Sorry for the maybe dumb question, I am totally lost at C++ outside of the orbiter API.

No longer, the Microsoft homepages are now the prime reference. For general C or C++ functions, I can recommend you

cppreference.com

en.cppreference.com

While this doesn't help you with your question above, its a really good resource for looking up useful tools and examples in the standard library.

 

[Max-Q]

That looks very helpful, thanks! Now maybe I can learn a bit more about C++…

 

[jedidia]

Orbiter actually has an api function for opening files with a relative path:

OAPIFUNC FILEHANDLE oapiOpenFile  ( const char *  fname, 
  FileAccessMode  mode, 
  PathRoot  root = ROOT 
 )

From the documentation:

Orbiter API: File IO Functions The file path defined in fname is relative to either the main Orbiter folder or to one of Orbiter's default subfolders, depending on the root parameter:

• ROOT Orbiter main directory
• CONFIG Orbiter config folder
• SCENARIOS Orbiter scenarios folder
• TEXTURES Orbiter standard texture folder
• TEXTURES2 Orbiter high-res texture folder
• MESHES Orbiter mesh folder
• MODULES Orbiter module folder

 

[Max-Q]

I got it working. Here is the code, oapiOpenFile() won't work for me since I am actually trying to open a PDF in acrobat reader.

void MyProject::OpenFlightManual()
{
    char orbiter_root[1024] = "";
    char path[1024] = "\\Doc\\MyProject\\MyFile.pdf";
    char full_path[2048] = "";
    GetCurrentDirectory(1024, orbiter_root);
    strcpy(full_path, orbiter_root);
    strcat(full_path, path);
    ShellExecute(NULL, "open", full_path, NULL, NULL, SW_SHOW);
}

Thanks for the help!