Make it easier for functions to access other files in their folder

This came from internal Yammer group.

If a function folder contains a data.txt file, it is currently difficult to read that file from the function code. Typically, common patterns to do this would be:

1. Rely on the current folder being set to the function folder as it runs
2. Rely on some environment variable pointing to the function folder

Unfortunately, these can’t work today since all functions run in the same process. We need to come up with an approach to solve this.

[davidebbo]

@abergs See here for a sample that does that.

[briandunnington]

The properties on the ExecutionContext are very helpful for C# projects. But I have another question/feature request:

I have some static files as part of my project (custom encoder presets stored as json or xml, etc) that I want to File.Read() into my function at runtime. Given that C# now uses attributes instead of folders, I keep all of my individual functions as .cs files in the root of my project along side the static files. ExecutionContext.FunctionDirectory only has function.json in it, and if i …/ up one level, my project-level static files are not in that folder. It turns out that they are in …/bin/ relative to the function folder.

However, when running the project locally using the VS Tools, the project .dlls and other output are not in a ‘bin’ subfolder but at the root of the output directory. So I cant reference the file using the same path locally and when deployed.

PROJECT -MyFunction1.cs -MyFunction2.cs -SomeOtherFile.json

How can I reference SomeOtherFile.json from my function both locally and when deployed?