DocFX: Generate API documentation for multiple projects - documentation-generation

Question

I'm working on a project that has multiple projects in a solution. I would like to be able to generate the documentation from an outside directory to keep the application code folders clean. When I try to set the src directory in my docfx.json, it doesn't seem to like absolute paths, nor does it like relative paths.
{
"metadata":
[{
"src":
[{
"files": ["../../../Repos/Wsi.Extranet.CommonServices/Wsi.Extranet.CommonServices/**/*.csproj"]
"exclude":
[
"**/obj/**",
"**/bin/**",
"_site/**"
]
}],
"dest": "api"
}],
"build": {
"content": [
{
"files": [
"api/**.yml",
"api/index.md"
]
},
{
"files": [
"articles/**.md",
"articles/**/toc.yml",
"toc.yml",
"*.md"
],
"exclude": [
"obj/**",
"_site/**"
]
}
],
"resource": [
{
"files": [
"images/**"
],
"exclude": [
"obj/**",
"_site/**"
]
}
],
"overwrite": [
{
"files": [
"apidoc/**.md"
],
"exclude": [
"obj/**",
"_site/**"
]
}
],
"src": "../../../Repos/Wsi.Extranet.CommonServices/Wsi.Extranet.CommonServices",
"dest": "_site",
"globalMetadataFiles": [],
"fileMetadataFiles": [],
"template": [
"default"
],
"postProcessors": [],
"noLangKeyword": false
}
}
It says it built fine but didn't find any files and the directory that it searches for is staying in the current directory.
D:\temp\WsiApiDocs\docfx_project>docfx metadata
Info: Config file docfx.json found, start generating metadata...
Info: No files are found with glob pattern **/*.csproj, excluding
**/obj/**,**/bin/**,_site/**, under directory "D:\temp\WsiApiDocs\docfx_project"
Info: Completed executing in 54.0087 milliseconds.
Build succeeded.
0 Warning(s)
0 Error(s)
When I attempt to put the relative path in the files property, I get the following:
D:\temp\WsiApiDocs\docfx_project>docfx metadata
Info: Config file docfx.json found, start generating metadata...
Info: No files are found with glob pattern
../../../Repos/Wsi.Extranet.CommonServices/Wsi.Extranet.CommonServices/**/*.csproj,
excluding **/obj/**,**/bin/**,_site/**, under directory
"D:\temp\WsiApiDocs\docfx_project"
**Warning: NOTE that `../` is currently not supported in glob pattern, please use `../` in `src` option instead.**
Info: Completed executing in 48.9621 milliseconds.
Build succeeded with warning.
Warning: NOTE that `../` is currently not supported in glob pattern, please use `../` in `src` option instead.
1 Warning(s)
0 Error(s)
So my confusion seems to be in how to use the src option instead. If use the src in metadata, then it seems that I can't specify the file and exclusion info. I tried to use a src property on the same level as metadata but that seemed to do nothing.

Answer 1

Just as the error states
../ is currently not supported in glob pattern
files, exclude etc. use glob patterns. Set a base directory instead via src:
{
"metadata": [
{
"src": [
{
"files": "Repos/Wsi.Extranet.CommonServices/Wsi.Extranet.CommonServices/**.csproj",
"exclude": [
"**/obj/**",
"**/bin/**"
],
"src": "../../.." // <---- base directory
}
],
"dest": "api"
}
],
"content": [
{
"files": [
"api/**.yml",
"api/index.md"
]
}
// ...
]
}
Here is an exmaple of structuring multiple projects