In another question, I finally found a way to deploy the XML file to be read via a Feature, to the _layouts folder:
Should I be deploying it there at all? I wasn't able to deploy it to my custom Feature folder which was the original plan. Should I be using the _wpresources folder instead?
_layouts is a virtual directory which maps to LAYOUTS? After deployment I was unable to find the file path in code. Where should I deploy the XML file and what is the C# syntax to grab that path?
string path = Page.Server.MapPath("/_layouts/links.xml");
This code leads to the following error:
Could not find file 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\template\layouts\links.xml'
I want to be able to read the links.xml file which is in the virtual "_layouts" directory (currently).