Get local path from UNC path

This is not a Sitecore issue. It’s not even web related, but it was a problem I stumbled upon when working on the Continuous Integration project that we in Pentia use. In order to simplify some of the scripts I would like to resolve the local path from a UNC path. For example if I have a UNC path to a network drive called \\INTEGRATIONSERVER\projects I would like to know what the local URL for that server is, for example d:\projects\.

I looked at the internet without finding the exact solution. I found some VB sripting examples, and I decided to rewrite these scripts using C#.

This function will take a UNC path (for example \\server\share or \\server\c$\folder and return the local path (for example c:\share or c:\folder).

using System.Management;

public static string GetPath(string uncPath)
{
  try
  {
    // remove the "\\" from the UNC path and split the path
    uncPath = uncPath.Replace(@"\\", "");
    string[] uncParts = uncPath.Split(new char[] {'\\'}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
    if (uncParts.Length < 2)
      return "&#91;UNRESOLVED UNC PATH: " + uncPath + "&#93;";
    // Get a connection to the server as found in the UNC path
    ManagementScope scope = new ManagementScope(@"\\" + uncParts&#91;0&#93; + @"\root\cimv2");
    // Query the server for the share name
    SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery("Select * From Win32_Share Where Name = '" + uncParts&#91;1&#93; + "'");
    ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(scope, query);
 
    // Get the path
    string path = string.Empty;
    foreach (ManagementObject obj in searcher.Get())
    {
      path = obj&#91;"path"&#93;.ToString();
    }

    // Append any additional folders to the local path name
    if (uncParts.Length > 2)
    {
      for (int i = 2; i < uncParts.Length; i++)
        path = path.EndsWith(@"\") ? path + uncParts&#91;i&#93; : path + @"\" + uncParts&#91;i&#93;;
    }

    return path;
  }
  catch (Exception ex)
  {
    return "&#91;ERROR RESOLVING UNC PATH: " + uncPath + ": "+ex.Message+"&#93;";
  }
}&#91;/sourcecode&#93;

The function uses the <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.management.managementobjectsearcher.aspx" target="_blank">ManagementObjectSearcher</a> to search for shares on the network server. If you do not have read access to this server, you will need to log in using different credentials. Replace the line with the <strong>ManagementScope</strong> with the following lines:

ConnectionOptions options = new ConnectionOptions();
options.Username = "username";
options.Password = "password";
ManagementScope scope = new ManagementScope(@"\\" + uncParts[0] + @"\root\cimv2", options);

The function is not perfect as it searches for shares only. If you give an UNC path to a folder that does not exist, the function will return the local path to that folder if the server and share exists. For example, let’s say that the folder \\SERVER\c$\myfolder does not exist, the fucntion still returns c:\myfolder.