I have a large solution in which the "root" project includes feature projects by glob:
<ProjectReference Include="..\Feature\*\*.csproj" />
This works, despite not looking great in the references list, but the issue that occasionally Visual Studio will rewrite the csproj with all of the project references resolved:
<ProjectReference Include="..\Feature\A\A.csproj" />
<ProjectReference Include="..\Feature\B\B.csproj" />
It's not clear what triggers this, but I'm guessing it might have something to do with NuGet.
Is there anyway to stop VS from doing this (akin to using DisableFastUpToDateCheck for custom MSBuild scenarios)?
It's not clear what triggers this, but I'm guessing it might have something to do with NuGet.
It should be related to the items in the ItemGroup. I have the similar issue before, but the difference is that I use wildcards to contain .cs files and your are .csproj files, looks like:
<ItemGroup>
<Compile Include="**\*.cs" />
</ItemGroup>
When I delete one of .cs file in the <ItemGroup>, the wildcard gets expanded in the csproj file. For you case, if I deleted the the C.csproj project from Visual Studio (Add it before, reload the root project), then I got the same result as you.
For this issue, many other community members submit a user voice to Visual Studio team: VS IDE should support file patterns in project files. Now this is well supported in the new project system used by .NET Core and .NET Standard in Visual Studio 2017, but they haven't done the work to support it for existing project types.
Is there anyway to stop VS from doing this (akin to using DisableFastUpToDateCheck for custom MSBuild scenarios)?
To resolve this issue, you can use option Exclude="..." to exclude the project that you do not want to refer to:
<ItemGroup>
<ProjectReference Include="..\Feature\*\*.csproj" Exclude="..\Feature\C\C.csproj" />
</ItemGroup>
Or, if you want to delete one of project and keep the wildcard pattern, you only need to unload the root project, then delete the reference project, reload the root project, the wildcard pattern would be preserved.
Hope this helps.
I've done further research on this.
For testing, you can consistency reproduce the expansion by renaming any project that's included in the wildcard pattern.
Also, the easiest way to prevent the expansion is to:
Move the project reference globs into Directory.Build.props or another external file
Set DisableFastUpToDateCheck to true in your csproj
Using properties doesn't work and isn't required, likewise with using an Exclude.
I'm trying to automatically add an entire folder structure to a VS C++ makefile project. This isn't to make the project build (it'll always build from the scons file), I mostly want to use VS to edit the code/find in projects/intellisense etc.
I've tried the solutions suggested here : Is there a way to automatically include content files into asp.net project file? My project currently includes the tags
<ItemGroup>
<Content Include="$([System.IO.Directory]::GetFiles('$(ProjectDir)..\', '*.cpp', SearchOption.AllDirectories))" />
<Content Include="R:\src\FabricEngine\FabricUI\**\*.*" />
</ItemGroup>
But I haven't had any success - none of the suggestions give me the list of files in Visual Studio. Is this an MSBuild feature that isn't supported by VS perhaps? Or is it limited to managed products? Any suggestions on how to get this working?
Got similar problem and found that used following worked for me:
<None Include="$([System.IO.Directory]::GetFiles('$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)', '*.cpp', SearchOption.AllDirectories))" />
But issue with this is it just takes really long time and crashes if you have lot of files
When I publish an ASP.NET Web Application in Visual Studio 2012/2013/2015, Visual Studio will also publish the packages.config (from NuGet) and any *.edmx.diagram files (from Entity Framework), by default.
I know that I can go into the project and individually switch the properties for these files from Build Action Content to Build Action None, however, I have to do this for each project that I use Entity Framework, or any other NuGet-provided package.
I can configure the publishing process to exclude files on a project-by-project basis, but is it possible to tell Visual Studio 2012/2013/2015 globally to exclude these files, across all projects?
You can exclude files by extension or filename modifying properties in the web.config file. Look at the documentation for the buildproviders element in web.config. You can add the extension and map it to the System.Web.Compilation.ForceCopyBuildProvider, or add the filename and use the System.Web.Compilation.IgnoreFileBuildProvider
The buildproviders section has the following structure:
<buildProviders>
<add />
<clear/>
<remove />
</buildProviders>
You can also exclude files or folders by modifying your project file. Within a PropertyGroup element, you can add ExcludeFilesFromDeployment and ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment elements to exclude the desired items.
<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' ">
<ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>File1.aspx;File2.aspx</ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
<ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>Folder1;Folder2</ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>
</PropertyGroup>
See the answers to this question for more details: Exclude files from web site publish in Visual Studio
UPDATE: In answer to the revised requirement that you be able to do this globally, across all projects and solutions, I'd suggest that you create a build target file that you could import into your project files. Within the target file, you can identify the file and folder exclusions you want to make.
To make it easier to deliver this build target to all of your solutions, you could create a NuGet package that contains the target file and modifies your .csproj files accordingly.
This is essentially the approach used by SlowCheetah to extend the web.config transform process to other .config files; the NuGet package delivers a custom .targets file that extends the build process.
The initial setup is an effort, but if you're supporting a lot of solutions or teams, it might be the best approach.
Is there a nice solution to be able to automatically refresh/include externally created files in the asp.net application project?
The majority of the time I'm programming front end javascript in Sublime Text 2 editor. When integrating with the rest of the team I have to manually make sure that any new files i've created externally are included in the asp.net project.
Is there an automatic option to refresh the files in a particular folder or something?
Thanks
Figured it out!
in the proj files you can edit the itemgroup includes so rather than just including individual files you can use glob patterns. such as
app\**\*.js
<ItemGroup>
<Content Include="app\**\*.js" />
<Content Include="scripts\jquery.js" />
</ItemGroup>
Can I exclude a folder or files when I publish a web site in Visual Studio 2005? I have various resources that I want to keep at hand in the Solution Explorer, such as alternate config files for various environments, but I don't really want to publish them to the server. Is there some way to exclude them? When using other project types, such as a .dll assembly, I can set a file's Build Action property to "None" and its Copy to Output Directory property to "Do not copy". I cannot find any similar settings for files in a web site.
If the IDE does not offer this feature, does anyone have good technique for handling such files?
Exclude files and folders by adding ExcludeFilesFromDeployment and ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment elements to your project file (.csproj, .vbproj, etc). You will need to edit the file in a text editor, or in Visual Studio by unloading the project and then editing it.
Add the tags anywhere within the appropriate PropertyGroup (Debug, Release, etc) as shown below:
<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' ">
...
<ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>File1.aspx;Folder2\File2.aspx</ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
<ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>**\.svn\**\*.*</ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
<ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>Folder1;Folder2\Folder2a</ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>
</PropertyGroup>
Wildcards are supported.
To explain the example above:
The 1st ExcludeFilesFromDeployment excludes File1.aspx (in root of project) and Folder2\File2.aspx (Folder2 is in the root of the project)
The 2nd ExcludeFilesFromDeployment excludes all files within any folder named .svn and any of its subfolders
The ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment excludes folders named Folder1 (in root of project) and Folder2\Folder2a (Folder2 is in the root of the project)
For more info see MSDN blog post Web Deployment: Excluding Files and Folders via the Web Application’s Project File
Amazingly the answer for Visual Studio 2012 is not here:
The answer with green checkmark is not the answer.
The highest "upped" answer references an article from 2010 and says you have to edit your csproj project file which is now incorrect. I added the ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment XML element to my Visual Studio 2012 csproj file and it did nothing, the element was considered invalid, this is because ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment has been moved to the .pubxml file it looks like.
For Web Applications and Websites you edit the .pubxml file!
You can follow my answer or try this guide which I found later:
http://www.leniel.net/2014/05/using-msdeploy-publish-profile-pubxml-to-create-an-empty-folder-structure-on-iis-and-skip-deleting-it-with-msdeployskiprules.html#sthash.MSsQD8U1.dpbs
Yes, you can do this not just for Website Projects but Websites too. I spent a long time on the internet looking for this elusive exclude ability with a Visual Studio Website (NOT Website project) and had previously concluded it was not possible but it looks like it is:
In your [mypublishwebsitename].pubxml file, found in ~/Properties/PublishProfiles for Web Application Projects and ~/App_Data/PublishProfiles for Websites, simply add:
<ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>File1.aspx;Folder2\File2.aspx</ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
<ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>Folder1;Folder2\Folder2a</ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>
as children to the main <PropertyGroup> element in your .pubxml file. No need to add a new element not unless you are keying a specific build type, like release or debug.
BUT WAIT!!!
If you are removing files from your destination/target server with the following setting in your Publish configuration:
Then the Web Publish process will delete on your source/target server anything excluded, like an item you have delineated in your <ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment> and <ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>!
MsDeploy Skip Rules to the rescue:
First, Web Publish uses something other than MSBuild to publish (called Task IO or something like that) but it has a bug and will not recognize skip rules, so you must add to your .pubxml:
<PropertyGroup>
<WebPublishMethod>MSDeploy</WebPublishMethod>
</PropertyGroup>
I would keep <WebPublishMethod> in its own <PropertyGroup>, you would think you could just have one <PropertyGroup> element in your .pubxml but my Skip Rules were not being called until I moved <WebPublishMethod> to its own <PropertyGroup> element. Yes, crazy, but the fact you need to do all this for Web Publish to exclude and also not delete a folder/file on your server is crazy.
Now my actual SkipRules, ExcludeFolders and ExcludeFiles declarations in my .pubxml:
<ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>Config</ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>
<ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>Photos</ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>
<ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>Temp</ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>
<ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>Web.config</ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
<AfterAddIisSettingAndFileContentsToSourceManifest>AddCustomSkipRules</AfterAddIisSettingAndFileContentsToSourceManifest>
And now a the Skip Rules (<Target> is a child of <Project> in your .pubxml):
(You may be able to leave <SkipAction> empty to Skip for all actions but I didn't test that and am not sure.
<Target Name="AddCustomSkipRules">
<Message Text="Adding Custom Skip Rules" />
<ItemGroup>
<MsDeploySkipRules Include="SkipConfigFolder">
<SkipAction>Delete</SkipAction>
<ObjectName>dirPath</ObjectName>
<AbsolutePath>$(_DestinationContentPath)\\Config</AbsolutePath>
<XPath>
</XPath>
</MsDeploySkipRules>
<MsDeploySkipRules Include="SkipPhotosFolder">
<SkipAction>Delete</SkipAction>
<ObjectName>dirPath</ObjectName>
<AbsolutePath>$(_DestinationContentPath)\\Photos</AbsolutePath>
<XPath>
</XPath>
</MsDeploySkipRules>
<MsDeploySkipRules Include="SkipWebConfig">
<SkipAction>Delete</SkipAction>
<ObjectName>filePath</ObjectName>
<AbsolutePath>$(_DestinationContentPath)\\Web\.config</AbsolutePath>
<XPath>
</XPath>
</MsDeploySkipRules>
<MsDeploySkipRules Include="SkipWebConfig">
<SkipAction>Delete</SkipAction>
<ObjectName>dirPath</ObjectName>
<AbsolutePath>$(_DestinationContentPath)\\Temp</AbsolutePath>
<XPath>
</XPath>
</MsDeploySkipRules>
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
And please, do not to forget to escape the . in a filePath Skip rule with a backslash.
If you can identify the files based on extension, you can configure this using the buildproviders tag in the web.config. Add the extension and map it to the ForceCopyBuildProvider. For example, to configure .xml files to be copied with a publish action, you would do the following:
<configuration>...
<system.web>...
<compilation>...
<buildProviders>
<remove extension=".xml" />
<add extension=".xml" type="System.Web.Compilation.ForceCopyBuildProvider" />
</buildProviders>
To keep a given file from being copied, you'd do the same thing but use System.Web.Compilation.IgnoreFileBuildProvider as the type.
I struggled with the same issue and finally pulled the trigger on converting the web site to a web application. Once I did this, I got all of the IDE benefits such as build action, and it compiled faster to boot (no more validating web site...).
Step 1: Convert your 'web site' to a 'web application'. To convert it I just created a new "web application", blew away all the files it created automatically, and copied and pasted my web site in. This worked fine. Note that report files will need to have their Build Action set to "Content" instead of "none".
Step 2: Now you can set any files "Build Action" property.
Hope this helps.
In Visual Studio 2013 I found Keith's answer, adding the ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment element to the project file, didn't work (I hadn't read Brian Ogden's answer which says this). However, I found I could exclude a text file when publishing in Visual Studio 2013 by just setting the following properties on the text file itself:
1) Build Action: None
2) Copy to Output Directory: Do not copy
Initially I tried setting the Copy to Output Directory property by itself but that didn't work when the Build Action was set to the default value, Content. When I then set the Build Action to None the text file was no longer copied to the destination folder when I published.
To view these properties in the Visual Studio GUI, in the Solution Explorer right-click on the file you want to exclude and select Properties from the context menu.
I think you only have two options here:
Use the 'Exclude From Project'
feature. This isn't ideal because the
project item will be excluded from
any integrated IDE source control operations.
You would need to click the 'Show All
Files' button on the Solution window
if you need to see the files in
Solution Explorer, but that also
shows files and folders you're not
interested in.
Use a post-build event script to
remove any project items you don't
want to be published (assuming you're
publishing to a local folder then
uploading to the server).
I've been through this before and couldn't come up with anything really elegant.
For Visual Studio 2017, WebApp Publish, first create a standard file system publish profile.
Go to the App_Data\PublishProfiles\ folder and edit the [profilename].pubxml file.
Add
<ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>[file1.ext];[file2.ext];[file(n).ext]</ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
under the tag<PropertyGroup>
You can only specify this tag once, otherwise it will only take the last one's values.
Example:
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<WebPublishMethod>FileSystem</WebPublishMethod>
<LastUsedBuildConfiguration>Release</LastUsedBuildConfiguration>
<LastUsedPlatform>Any CPU</LastUsedPlatform>
<SiteUrlToLaunchAfterPublish />
<LaunchSiteAfterPublish>True</LaunchSiteAfterPublish>
<ExcludeApp_Data>True</ExcludeApp_Data>
<publishUrl>C:\inetput\mysite</publishUrl>
<DeleteExistingFiles>False</DeleteExistingFiles>
<ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>web.config;mysite.sln;App_Code\DevClass.cs;</ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
</PropertyGroup>
</Project>
Make sure that the tag DeleteExistingFiles is set to False
As a contemporary answer, in Visual Studio 2017 with a .net core site:
You can exclude from publish like so in the csproj, where CopyToPublishDirectory is never.
<ItemGroup>
<Content Update="appsettings.json">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
<CopyToPublishDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToPublishDirectory>
</Content>
<Content Update="appsettings.Local.json">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
<CopyToPublishDirectory>Never</CopyToPublishDirectory>
</Content>
</ItemGroup>
This is discussed in more detail here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/host-and-deploy/visual-studio-publish-profiles?view=aspnetcore-2.2
<PropertyGroup>
<ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>appsettings.Local.json</ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
</PropertyGroup>
The earlier suggestions did not work for me, I'm guessing because visual studio is now using a different publishing mechanism underneath, I presume via the "dotnet publish" cli tool or equivalent underneath.
The feature you are looking exists if your project is created as a "Web Application". Web Site "projects" are just a collection of files that are thought of as 1:1 with what gets deployed to a web server.
In terms of functionality both are the same, however a web application compiles all source code to a DLL, instead of the naked source code files being copied to the web server and compiled as needed.
This is just an addendum to the other helpful answers here and something I've found useful...
Using wpp.targets to excluded files and folders
When you have multiple deployments for different environments then it's helpful to have just one common file where you can set all the excluded files and folders. You can do this by creating a *.wpp.targets file in the root of the project like the example below.
For more information see this Microsoft guide:
How to: Edit Deployment Settings in Publish Profile (.pubxml) Files and the .wpp.targets File in Visual Studio Web Projects
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<EnableMSDeployAppOffline>True</EnableMSDeployAppOffline>
<ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
*.config;
*.targets;
*.default;
</ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
<ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>
images;
videos;
uploads;
</ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>
</PropertyGroup>
</Project>
In Visual Studio 2017 (15.9.3 in my case) the manipulation of the .csproj-File works fine indeed! No need to modify the pubxml.
You can then construct pretty nice settings in the .csproj-File using the PropertyGroup condition, e.g.:
<PropertyGroup Condition="$(Configuration.StartsWith('Pub_'))">
<ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>Samples</ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>
</PropertyGroup>
excludes the "Samples" folder from all deployments with configurations starting with "Pub_"...
In Visual Studio 2022 I have successfully used this settings:
Go and edit the
[ProjectName] \ Properties \ PublishProfiles \ FolderProfile.pubxml file
in solution explorer.
Add these lines inside PropertyGroup
element:
<ItemGroup>
<Content Remove="Data\*.json" />
<None Include="Data\*.json" />
</ItemGroup>
Then save the .pubxml file and try to publish the project.
"Content Remove" will remove the file from the content to deploy.
"None Include" will keep the file in the solution explorer.
It's possible to set it up in the solution explorer for single files as well: right click the file in the solution explorer -> Properties and change the Build Action to None.