I have solution A (which has the startup project) and solution B. Solution A uses things from solution B. For that A has a project which when rebuilt copies dlls and .pdbs to A's directories. Is there a way to make solution A recognize source code that sits in B? For example if I have a class moo in B, can I accomplish the following?
Have Intellisense in solution A be aware of type moo and moo's methods, including recommending it when trying to instantiate a new object?
Be able to F12 the moo type from solution A and have visual studio open the original source code for me just like types that originate from solution A?
Can I access source code sitting in a different solution in Visual
studio (.net/C#)
To debug the projects of Solution B in Solution A, you should make sure that you have xx.dll and xx.pdb files from Solution B are on the outputpath folder of Solution A.
Just as Hans said, you can right-click on Solution A -->Add-->Existing Project-->select the related xxx.csproj of Solution B.
After that, Click on References of the project from Solution A --> Add Reference--> Projects--> select the target imported project from Solution B.
With them, you could debug that project and enter into B's code in Solution A.
=================
Besides, if the project of the solution B is a class library project, you could also use Add Reference node on the project of Solution A to reference the target xxx.dll.
Right-click on the project-->Add Reference-->Browse-->find the output file xxx.dll of the Solution B in the new instance.
Please note you should use Debug Configuration to build them all.
Then you can use it in your project.
In addition, you could also use ProjectReference xml node in xxx.csproj file of Solution A.
Add these in xxx.csproj file:
<ItemGroup>
<ProjectReference Include="xxxx\SolutionB\xxxx.csproj"> // the path of the project in Solution B
<Name>xxxxx</Name> //name of the project
</ProjectReference>
</ItemGroup>
Then build your project once and then you can get it.
Although there is a warning the referenced component xxx cannot be referenced, vs can still find the referenced project and use its content.
I am trying to create a Visual Studio Project Template that contains a solution and two projects. The first project, ProjectA, has needs a reference to the second project, ProjectB. I found that I need to add the tag to the ProjectTemplate.csproj for ProjectA. However, it adds the reference, but doesn't link it up. In other words it has the yellow flag on it like it would if the reference is missing. I am assuming that my path is correct, because with an intentionally incorrect path the reference doesn't show up at all. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I am working on creating a custom Visual Studio template for multiple project types. I would like to be able to add reference across the projects in the solution. e.g. MVVM solution where View, Model and ViewModels are each in their own projects. I'd like to have the View have reference to the ViewModel project and the ViewModel project to have reference to the Model project.
Only documentation I can find on MSDN calls for strongly named assemblies to be referenced.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms185290.aspx
I am able to get partially there, by modifying the .cproj file using some of system parameters, but this is heavily dependent on naming conventions etc. for instance I can have the Model project referenced in the ViewModel project because the concatenation of the $safeprojectname$ and "Model" makes the correct assembly name. But I cant get reference of the VM in the V, nor can I add any references to any testing projects.
<ItemGroup>
<ProjectReference Include="..\$safeprojectname$Model\$safeprojectname$Model.csproj">
<Project>{30C01E8B-96AE-45B4-A7B5-8F7BDCA4BDAB}</Project>
<Name>$safeprojectname$Model</Name>
</ProjectReference>
</ItemGroup>
Does anyone know how I can go about achieving this in the template?
Thanks.
I dont know if this is the correct way to do this, but this is what I did. I ended up opening the config file in a text editor and replacing/adding the appropriate project references as necessary. By using appropriate naming conventions I was able to programatically create the project files, sub folders etc.
My team is creating some standard VS solution templates. We have a well-defined project structure, resources, etc. that we need to use every time we start a new project and this is the perfect solution. The basics work nicely.
However, as well as defining folder structure (etc.) it would be nice to be able to import a number of projects from VSS/TFS. We have a number of shared assemblies that will be used by all projects and it would be awesome to add a reference to these projects when creating a new project via our template. Can anyone tell me if this is possible and, if so, how it can be achieved?
I think there are 3 types of items you might want to templatize (is that a word?).
New Solution
New Project added to a solution
New item added to a project
I'm not sure whether its possible to add existing projects to the solution that is created when a project template is run. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms185308.aspx shows how to create multiple project templates. You may have to either manually add them to the solution or create a script that modifies the .sln file to do that part.
Adding an assembly reference to either a project or item template is easily doable. The project template is pretty simple since you just need to modify your .vstemplate file for the project template(s). See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171405.aspx for reference.
Adding a new assembly reference when you add a new item from a template is a bit harder but can also be done. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms185290.aspx for more.
Have fun!
I have four projects in my Visual Studio solution (everyone targeting .NET 3.5) - for my problem only these two are important:
MyBaseProject <- this class library references a third-party DLL file (elmah.dll)
MyWebProject1 <- this web application project has a reference to MyBaseProject
I added the elmah.dll reference to MyBaseProject in Visual studio 2008 by clicking "Add reference..." → "Browse" tab → selecting the "elmah.dll".
The Properties of the Elmah Reference are as follows:
Aliases - global
Copy local - true
Culture -
Description - Error Logging Modules and Handlers (ELMAH) for ASP.NET
File Type - Assembly
Path - D:\webs\otherfolder\_myPath\__tools\elmah\Elmah.dll
Resolved - True
Runtime version - v2.0.50727
Specified version - false
Strong Name - false
Version - 1.0.11211.0
In MyWebProject1 I added the reference to Project MyBaseProject by:
"Add reference..." → "Projects" tab → selecting the "MyBaseProject". The Properties of this reference are the same except the following members:
Description -
Path - D:\webs\CMS\MyBaseProject\bin\Debug\MyBaseProject.dll
Version - 1.0.0.0
If I run the build in Visual Studio the elmah.dll file is copied to my MyWebProject1's bin directory, along with MyBaseProject.dll!
However if I clean and run MSBuild for the solution (via D:\webs\CMS> C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\MSBuild.exe /t:ReBuild /p:Configuration=Debug MyProject.sln)
the elmah.dll is missing in MyWebProject1's bin directory - although the build itself contains no warning or errors!
I already made sure that the .csproj of MyBaseProject contains the private element with the value "true" (that should be an alias for "copy local" in Visual Studio):
<Reference Include="Elmah, Version=1.0.11211.0, Culture=neutral, processorArchitecture=MSIL">
<SpecificVersion>False</SpecificVersion>
<HintPath>..\mypath\__tools\elmah\Elmah.dll</HintPath>
**<Private>true</Private>**
</Reference>
(The private tag didn't appear in the .csproj's xml by default, although Visual Studio said "copy local" true. I switched "copy local" to false - saved - and set it back to true again - save!)
What is wrong with MSBuild? How do I get the (elmah.dll) reference copied to MyWebProject1's bin?
I do NOT want to add a postbuild copy action to every project's postbuild command! (Imagine I would have many projects depend on MyBaseProject!)
I just deal with it like this. Go to the properties of your reference and do this:
Set "Copy local = false"
Save
Set "Copy local = true"
Save
and that's it.
Visual Studio 2010 doesn't initially put:
<private>True</private> in the reference tag and setting "copy local" to false causes it to create the tag. Afterwards it will set it to true and false accordingly.
I'm not sure why it is different when building between Visual Studio and MsBuild, but here is what I have found when I've encountered this problem in MsBuild and Visual Studio.
Explanation
For a sample scenario let's say we have project X, assembly A, and assembly B. Assembly A references assembly B, so project X includes a reference to both A and B. Also, project X includes code that references assembly A (e.g. A.SomeFunction()). Now, you create a new project Y which references project X.
So the dependency chain looks like this: Y => X => A => B
Visual Studio / MSBuild tries to be smart and only bring references over into project Y that it detects as being required by project X; it does this to avoid reference pollution in project Y. The problem is, since project X doesn't actually contain any code that explicitly uses assembly B (e.g. B.SomeFunction()), VS/MSBuild doesn't detect that B is required by X, and thus doesn't copy it over into project Y's bin directory; it only copies the X and A assemblies.
Solution
You have two options to solve this problem, both of which will result in assembly B being copied to project Y's bin directory:
Add a reference to assembly B in project Y.
Add dummy code to a file in project X that uses assembly B.
Personally I prefer option 2 for a couple reasons.
If you add another project in the future that references project X, you won't have to remember to also include a reference to assembly B (like you would have to do with option 1).
You can have explicit comments saying why the dummy code needs to be there and not to remove it. So if somebody does delete the code by accident (say with a refactor tool that looks for unused code), you can easily see from source control that the code is required and to restore it. If you use option 1 and somebody uses a refactor tool to clean up unused references, you don't have any comments; you will just see that a reference was removed from the .csproj file.
Here is a sample of the "dummy code" that I typically add when I encounter this situation.
// DO NOT DELETE THIS CODE UNLESS WE NO LONGER REQUIRE ASSEMBLY A!!!
private void DummyFunctionToMakeSureReferencesGetCopiedProperly_DO_NOT_DELETE_THIS_CODE()
{
// Assembly A is used by this file, and that assembly depends on assembly B,
// but this project does not have any code that explicitly references assembly B. Therefore, when another project references
// this project, this project's assembly and the assembly A get copied to the project's bin directory, but not
// assembly B. So in order to get the required assembly B copied over, we add some dummy code here (that never
// gets called) that references assembly B; this will flag VS/MSBuild to copy the required assembly B over as well.
var dummyType = typeof(B.SomeClass);
Console.WriteLine(dummyType.FullName);
}
If you are not using the assembly directly in code then Visual Studio whilst trying to be helpful detects that it is not used and doesn't include it in the output. I'm not sure why you are seeing different behaviour between Visual Studio and MSBuild. You could try setting the build output to diagnostic for both and compare the results see where it diverges.
As for your elmah.dll reference if you are not referencing it directly in code you could add it as an item to your project and set the Build Action to Content and the Copy to Output Directory to Always.
Take a look at:
This MSBuild forum thread I started
You will find my temporary solution / workaround there!
(MyBaseProject needs some code that is referencing some classes (whatever) from the elmah.dll for elmah.dll being copied to MyWebProject1's bin!)
I had the same problem.
Check if the framework version of your project is the same of the framework version of the dll that you put on reference.
In my case, my client was compiled using "Framework 4 Client" and the DLL was in "Framework 4".
The issue I was facing was I have a project that is dependent on a library project. In order to build I was following these steps:
msbuild.exe myproject.vbproj /T:Rebuild
msbuild.exe myproject.vbproj /T:Package
That of course meant I was missing my library's dll files in bin and most importantly in the package zip file. I found this works perfectly:
msbuild.exe myproject.vbproj /T:Rebuild;Package
I have no idea why this work or why it didn't in the first place. But hope that helps.
I just had the exact same problem and it turned out to be caused by the fact that 2 projects in the same solution were referencing a different version of the 3rd party library.
Once I corrected all the references everything worked perfectly.
As Alex Burtsev mentioned in a comment anything that’s only used in a XAML resource dictionary, or in my case, anything that’s only used in XAML and not in code behind, isn't deemed to be 'in use' by MSBuild.
So simply new-ing up a dummy reference to a class/component in the assembly in some code behind was enough convince MSBuild that the assembly was actually in use.
Using deadlydog's scheme,
Y => X => A => B,
my problem was when I built Y, the assemblies (A and B, all 15 of them) from X were not showing up in Y's bin folder.
I got it resolved by removing the reference X from Y, save, build, then re-add X reference (a project reference), and save, build, and A and B started showing up in Y's bin folder.
Changing the target framework from .NET Framework 4 Client Profile to .NET Framework 4 fixed this problem for me.
So in your example: set the target framework on MyWebProject1 to .NET Framework 4
I had the same problem and the dll was a dynamically loaded reference.
To solve the problem I have added an "using" with the namespace of the dll.
Now the dll is copied in the output folder.
This requires adding a .targets file to your project and setting it to be included in the project's includes section.
See my answer here for the procedure.
Referencing assemblies that are not used during build is not the correct practice. You should augment your build file so it will copy the additional files. Either by using a post build event or by updating the property group.
Some examples can be found in other post
MSBuild to copy dynamically generated files as part of project dependency
VS2010 How to include files in project, to copy them to build output directory automatically during build or publish
Another scenario where this shows up is if you are using the older "Web Site" project type in Visual Studio. For that project type, it is unable to reference .dlls that are outside of it's own directory structure (current folder and down). So in the answer above, let's say your directory structure looks like this:
Where ProjectX and ProjectY are parent/child directories, and ProjectX references A.dll which in turn references B.dll, and B.dll is outside the directory structure, such as in a Nuget package on the root (Packages), then A.dll will be included, but B.dll will not.
I had a similar issue today, and this is most certainly not the answer to your question. But I'd like to inform everyone, and possibly provide a spark of insight.
I have a ASP.NET application. The build process is set to clean and then build.
I have two Jenkins CI scripts. One for production and one for staging. I deployed my application to staging and everything worked fine. Deployed to production and was missing a DLL file that was referenced. This DLL file was just in the root of the project. Not in any NuGet repository. The DLL was set to do not copy.
The CI script and the application was the same between the two deployments. Still after the clean and deploy in the staging environment the DLL file was replaced in the deploy location of the ASP.NET application (bin/). This was not the case for the production environment.
It turns out in a testing branch I had added a step to the build process to copy over this DLL file to the bin directory. Now the part that took a little while to figure out. The CI process was not cleaning itself. The DLL was left in the working directory and was being accidentally packaged with the ASP.NET .zip file. The production branch never had the DLL file copied in the same way and was never accidentally deploying this.
TLDR; Check and make sure you know what your build server is doing.
Make sure that both projects are in the same .net version also check copy local property but this should be true as default
Using Visual Studio 2015 adding the additional parameter
/deployonbuild=false
to the msbuild command line fixed the issue.
I just ran into a very similar issue. When compiling using Visual Studio 2010, the DLL file was included in the bin folder. But when compiling using MSBuild the third-party DLL file was not included.
Very frustrating. The way I solved it was to include the NuGet reference to the package in my web project even though I'm not using it directly there.
I dont think #deadlydog answer is valid with the current Nuget system. I recreated the scenario with Y => X => A => B in visual studio 2022 and all I had to do was run the command in terminal
msbuild -t:clean,rebuild,pack
Including all referenced DLL files from your projectreferences in the Website project is not always a good idea, especially when you're using dependency injection: your web project just want to add a reference to the interface DLL file/project, not any concrete implementation DLL file.
Because if you add a reference directly to an implementation DLL file/project, you can't prevent your developer from calling a "new" on concrete classes of the implementation DLL file/project instead of via the interface. It's also you've stated a "hardcode" in your website to use the implementation.