I have a solution file with 3 projects under it. A situation came up where I need to open just the one csproj file in the solution. So I tried to open just that single csproj file.
Guess what wonderful Visual Studio does. It always opens the entire associated solution of the csproj file! I've tried double-clicking on the csproj file from Windows Explorer, tried File->Open->Project/Solution and explicitly chose the csproj file, all to no avail.
This is where I have to say the eggheads at Microsoft are so smart that they are stupid. Does anyone have an idea what I can do, short of creating another solution (containing only the one csproj file that I want)?
Related
I searched already on stackoverflow and on the internet but I couldn't find a similar specific question.
When i have to rename a already checked-in (tfs) project in my visual studio (2010-2013) solution, I always use a procedure similar to this one here in the accepted question:
stackoverflow.com/questions/2043618/proper-way-to-rename-solution-and-directories-in-visual-studio
Here is the important snippet from there (thanks to author):
Close Visual Studio.
Create a backup of your .sln file (you can always roll back).
Imagine you want to rename directory "Project1" to "Project2".
If not using source control, rename the folder from "Project1" to "Project2" using Windows Explorer.
If using source control, rename the folder from "Project1" to "Project2" using the functions supplied by source control. This
preserves the history of the file. For example, with TortoiseSVN,
right click on the file, select TortoiseSVN .. Rename.
In the .sln file, edit all instances of "Project1" to be "Project2".
Restart Visual Studio, and everything will work as before, but with the project in a different directory.
..and there i always do step 6:
Step 6.: In the .sln file, edit all instances of "Project1" to be "Project2".
By observing the .sln file i could see that until step 6 (so in my case of using the tfs i did steps 1,2,3 and 5) there are still occurrences of the old project name in the .sln file:
Project("{XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX}") = "Project2",
"Project1\Project2.csproj", "{XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX}"
and:
SccProjectUniqueName92 = Project1\Project2.csproj
SccProjectName92 = Project1
SccLocalPath92 = Project1
Until now i had no problems with that approach. But as i could see a colleague of me is skipping step 6 and there are still occurrences of the old project name in the .sln file.
Now i wonder if step 6 is really needed/required?
I am keeping using step 6 just for more cleanness! But whats your opinion on this?
Could the old project name occurrences in the .sln file (if skipping step 6) even some time lead to functional problems with tfs/vs etc.?
Or is it only for the purpose of a cleaner/clearer code better to do carry out step 6?
If you are renaming a project within a solution, that is under source control, really all you need to do is to rename the project in Visual Studio and then submit the changes to the project file and the solution file, back into source control.
Visual Studio and TFS should handle all of the changes for you, VS will rename the project and update the references in the SLN file.
TFS will handle the rename and will maintain the history line.
The only time it should get complicated is if you are moving projects and solutions within source control, when you are carrying out this sort of task then the list above is a fair description of what needs to be done, but after step 4 i would just open the solution remove the project that can no longer be found and add in the newly renamed project, this would then automatically handle the sln file changes. now obviously this would orphan your history on the project if it was under source control, but you would make the project name change through TFS before reopening the solution.
if you want to manually change the sln file then a find and replace operation is the simplest way to update the file.
Coming Back to your question.
You really should ensure the sln file is correct as this tells VS where to download the files from and what projects actually make up the solution, by not updating the sln file correctly you, or other users of TFS may not get the correct files downloaded and you may have issues opening your solution.
An example of fall out from not having these files in line can be found in this question Why missing <SccProjectName> in project file cause "The project file is not bound to source control"
I have a msbuild project file myproject.proj. Now is there any way I can make a solution file (.sln) from the .proj file. If this is not possible. Is there any ways I can make a solution file from a group of csproj files?
If you would like to do manually.
Open Visual Studio
File>Open>Project/Solution
Provide/Select existing vcxproj file.
File>Save Solution. Provide name. Or If you fire build, it will ask you for name first time.
Same can be done for many vcxproj as well. Repeat step 3.
I am working on an big old project. MSBuild is used as the build engine. And I see a lot of .proj, .bat, .sln and .csprj files used in the build process.
I know that .sln file and .csprj can be edit relatively easily with Visual Studio. But is there some easy way to help write and comprehend the .proj and .bat files?
Also, I am lost in the numerous environment variables such as $(SolutionFolder), where can I find the definitions for them?
Many thanks...
The following description is based on how I made use of such files in the open source project, http://code.google.com/p/lextudio/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Ftrunk
.sln and .csproj should never be manually edited unless you are asked to. They should be mainly maintained by developers via Visual Studio.
Your focus should be put on the .proj file, where custom targets and properties are set. They are usually manually created and calling MSBuild to build .sln/.csproj in an expected way.
You can edit .proj files inside Visual Studio, as VS knows it is a MSBuild script type.
.bat files are usually wrappers over the core .proj file, so as to let you execute a certain target with expected properties, so it may only contain a call command to MSBuild.exe. I usually use Notepad++ to edit such files, as n++ provides highlighting for .bat files.
Many of the predefined properties are documented by Microsoft, as the link posted by #mortb shows.
.bat files are batch files. They cointains script that are executed by the windows command prompt. Each row contains a statement (like copy, execute program etc) that could be entered at the command prompt. I usually edit bat files in notepad, you may also edit them as text in visual studio. The windows help contains more information about batch files.
.proj is a generic Visual Studio project file
Finding a reference to the variables wasn't too hard:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/c02as0cs.aspx
Hope this helps
I can open my project by double clicking on the .csproj file. It opens fine and it doesn’t generate a .sln. If I copy the same project to a virtual machine and do the same it opens but creates a .sln file.
I really don’t need a solution I would prefer to only work on a single project.
Am I missing something here?
Visual Studio always creates a solution. If it cannot find one in the same folder as the .csproj file then it will create one itself, based on what it can reverse-engineer from the project file content.
The solution is hidden by default if the solution only contains one project. Fixing this is recommended: Tools + Options, Projects and Solutions, General, "Always show solution" checkbox.
There is always a solution, even if you don't see it. There's a setting that determines whether the solution is visible when there is only one project.
Many times I have seen Visual Studio solutions which have multiple projects that share source files. These common source files are usually out in a common directory and in the solution explorer their icon shows up with a link arrow in the bottom left.
However, any time I try to add a source file to the project that is outside of that project's main directory, it just automatically copies it into the directory so that I no longer have a shared copy.
I found that I can get around this by manually opening the project file in a text editor and modifying the path to something like "../../../Common/Source.cs" but this is more of a hack then I would like.
Is there a setting or something I can change that will allow me to do this from within the IDE?
Right click on a project, select Add->Existing Item->Add as link (press on small arrow on Add button)
Thanks #aku!
I knew this could be done, but I didn't know how to do this from Visual Studio. It shows up as a shortcut to the file and the csproj file generates the resulting XML like this:
<Compile Include="..\CommonAssemblyInfo.cs">
<Link>CommonAssemblyInfo.cs</Link>
</Compile>
I've seen this technique commonly used for common AssemblyInfo files to keep a consistent version.