Preserve directories when using appsetting_files

[jeanmorais]

We're migrating some apps from MS Build to our Bazel monorepo, so I have a question regarding how appsetting_files behaves.

When I define a glob like this:

csharp_binary(
    name = "server",
    appsetting_files = glob([
    "Files/*.*",
])

The output seems to flatten the directory structure — all files under Files/ are copied directly into the root of the output directory. As a result, we need to implement custom logic in the code to reconstruct or handle the expected paths.

Is this the expected behavior? Is there a recommended way to preserve the directory structure in the output, ideally without requiring too much custom implementation?

Thanks in advance!

[purkhusid]

Do you have an example on how you load the appsetting files in your code? This is kind of a recurring issue with Bazel and other build systems because usually binaries that require files during runtime will use the Runfiles library to locate them.

[jeanmorais]

@purkhusid

dotnet/server/src
├── BUILD.bazel
├── Files
│   ├── OpenSans-Bold.ttf
...

Then, I'm reading this way (MS Build):

string path = Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() + "/Files/OpenSans-Bold.ttf"
FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);

In Bazel, the files listed in appsetting_files are copied directly into the output directory, flattening the Files/ structure. As a result, when executing the generated .dll (result of build/publish), I need to reference the file as OpenSans-Bold.ttf instead of Files/OpenSans-Bold.ttf.

Regarding runfiles: it seems they are only necessary when running the project locally with bazel run. In this case, I should add the glob pattern to the data attribute, and access the files using Bazel’s runfiles directory at runtime (it worked for me this way). When using data, the Files directory is preserved in the runfiles tree:

string path = "dotnet/server/src/Files/OpenSans-BoldItalic.ttf"

I'm not sure if this is the right way to handle both scenarios.