We have a big solution with a lot of projects in it. Some projects reference the same DLL's and I need to replace one DLL. Is there a way to see which references are in the entire solution so I don't have to go over each project one by one?
I want to see the solution-wide references, not per-project. Is it possible?
Just to expand a little further on Juozas answer, you can use most modern Text editors to find/replace. For example in Notepad++ use Find-in-Files (Ctrl-Shift-F)
Notice I left the end quote off the search as sometimes the Reference will include additional info, eg
Reference Include="System.Web.Mvc, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=
Leaving off the end double quote may then give you false positive (as in my example it includes refs to System.Data and System.Data.DataSetExtensions
You can try textual replace in .XXproj files to change the reference.
Visual Studio by itself doens´t provide any functionality to display or visualize project (assembly) references and dependencies.
For this i would recommened you to use NDepend. It provides a Trial mode and it can analyze your assemblies and display the assembly dependencies.
Related
Is there anyway within Visual Studio / TFS to identify which project produces which dll?
I'm aware you can look under a particular project's properties and see what the name of the dll is, but in the circumstance where you have loads and loads of projects this doesn't seem very efficient.
I've got the situation where I've got a project that references a dll, which includes a method I want to examine, but I don't know what project produces this dll.
Unfortunately, no. The only way I know is that you may could use a decompile extension. (Strongly not recommend to use) Through the source code after decompile, you can view namespace and judge which project produces the dll. (Under normal circumstances)
And you may also have to face some problems such as:
Legal issues
Need to pay for the extension
Only work for C#/.Net
The source code may be confusion and not standard
This should be a one time activity, you can go ahead and take a look into the project file, in case of C# project the csproj file.
If you do not want to do it opening each file, then i would say write a small tool to read all the project files and look for the name.
BTW, this will be different for different projects, and you need to find out the proper location to look.
We setup our assembly references as project references. I am reorganizing source control, moving projects here and there. When I open my solution the project references are broken. I have to remove the references and re-add them. Doing this removes the project reference from all assemblies.
Is there a way to correct the project reference in the solution file without removing and re-adding projects?
I could go into MSBUILD and do it, but there's no unload option for my solution...so that seems like a pain. Any native way to fix this common issue? Since the files are in the same solution, I expect the project references to resolve themselves automatically.
This way I don't have to correct all my references manually.
If you need to do this just only once - Resharper could help you to do this a bit faster.
Whenever it finds broken reference - it will offer option "reference assembly X and use class Z". Probably not the best way cause it still involves manual file plumbing, but this could SLIGHTLY reduce mouse clicks and file tree navigation. Though, you still need to remove wrong reference manually.
My solution has a library project which needs a special environment to be built (lots of external libraries and tools)... but it is not vital to our application. We'd like to avoid installing these tools when not necessary (most of our developers work on other parts of code).
We have created another project which has the same API, but has an empty implementation and is compilable without those external tools. I'd like to be able to easily switch between those projects and still get all the references in other projects correct.
I don't know VS/MSBuild very well, but willing to learn whatever is necessary. Is it possible? I am looking for ideas... We're using Subversion, and solutions involving some hacks inside VCS are also welcome.
It sounds as if your library project is one that can be separated from your primary solution, taking the tool baggage with it. Doing that, you could build the speciality solution separately, an link the compiled assembly from the main solution.
Create another build-configuration for your project.
So you will have at least 2 build-configurations e.g. Debug_SpecialNeeds and Debug.
For discussion, I'll assume you have a project directory containing your solution file, a "RealLibrary\RealLibrary.csproj" project file (your "real" library, with the dependencies), and a "MockLibrary\MockLibrary.csproj" file (your "mock" library, with the empty implementations).
If I understand correctly, you want to easily "swap" the MockLibrary for the RealLibrary in your solution, and vice-versa.
The easiest/hackiest way to do this, assuming your solution (and dependent projects) are configured to look for the "RealLibrary.csproj" project, is to rename the "RealLibrary" directory (it doesn't matter to what), and rename the "MockLibrary" directory to "RealLibrary" and rename "MockLibrary.csproj" to "RealLibrary.csproj". This will effectively "trick" your solution and dependent projects into loading the "mock library" even though they are referencing the "real library".
A slightly more complex (and perhaps cleaner) solution is to actually modify your "sln" and "csproj" files to reference "MockLibrary.csproj" instead of "RealLibrary.csproj". In the "sln" file, you'll need to change the path to the project in the section near the top:
Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00
# Visual Studio 2008
Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "RealLibrary", "RealLibrary\RealLibrary.csproj", "{E1714F9A-E1D9-4132-A561-AE2B4919391C}"
EndProject
You need to change that path "RealLibrary\RealLibrary.csproj" to "MockLibrary\MockLibrary.csproj". If you're going for completeness, you can change the name as well (or perhaps just use a generic name like "Library" for the name).
Likewise, in the dependent csproj files, you'll need to find all instances of the "ProjectReference" node where you reference "RealLibrary.csproj" and modify the path. These sections look like this:
<ProjectReference Include="..\RealLibrary\RealLibrary.csproj">
<Project>{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}</Project>
<Name>RealLibrary</Name>
</ProjectReference>
You could relatively easily write some scripts to perform this swap. However, I think there's a deeper problem here that can be addressed more directly. I'll post that as a separate answer, but I wanted you to have the actual answer you were looking for first.
The deeper problem I see here is that your library "needs a special environment to be built", specifically because it depends on "lots of external libraries and tools". I would suggest that you NOT go down the path of creating the mock library, but instead focus on getting the library to build correctly without a special environment. You can achieve this by including all of those dependencies in source control along with your project, and reference those dependencies via relative paths inside your working copy. In my build environments, I try to avoid static environmental dependencies as much as possible (ideally limiting it just to the .NET framework itself).
To get the dependencies into source control, you can either check them directly into the project itself, or you can check them into a different location and then "reference" them in your project via svn:external definitions. In my environment, I have a separate "bin" repository used just for these kind of third party library dependencies, and then many dependent projects can pull them in via externals.
If you can eliminate your library's build-time environmental dependencies, your build will be much more robust and it will be much easier for developers to work with the project.
I have a solution with a decent number of projects (say, 30) and I want to find which of these projects reference a particular assembly.
Here's a concrete example: In the Object Browser I can see that two different versions of the same assembly are referenced throughout the solution. I want to see which project(s) use each of these references, so I can update them all to point to the same thing.
alt text http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/bd7c85cb2e.png
Unfortunately, the .csproj files are scattered in different locations, so a simple grep is not all that simple.
Any suggestions?
I'm thinking of making a script that parses the .sln file and then parse each project file, but maybe there's a simpler solution.
PS. I'm using ReSharper, if that's any help.
In Resharper 5.0, you can click on a project and use "Find Code Dependent on Module". That should give you what you want.
I have a Java background so I’m used to having Maven handle all problem around downloading and keeping dependencies up to date. But in the .NET environment I have not yet found a good way to manage all these external dependencies.
The main problem here is that I mass produce solutions and they all tend to depend on the same third party dll’s. But I don’t want to maintain separate copies of each component under each solution. So I need a way of linking all the different solutions to the same set of dll’s.
I realized that one solution might be to include the external libraries in a ”library project” that is included in all solutions and let the other projects references them through it. (Or just make sure to reference the external dll’s from the same place for all projects.)
But are there any better ways to do this?
(Preferably using some sort of plug-in for Visual Studio.)
I’ve looked at the Visual Studio Dependency Manager and it seems like a perfect match but have anyone tried it for real? I’ve also seen the .NET ports of Maven, but unfortunately I was not too impressed by the status of those. (But please go ahead and recommend them anyone if you think I should give them another try.)
So what would be the smartest way to tackle this problem?
Update:
I realized that I needed to explain what I meant with linking to the same set of dll’s.
One of the things I'm trying to achieve here is to avoid that the different solutions are referencing different versions of each component. If I update a component to a new version, it should be updated for all solutions upon next build. This would force me to make sure all solutions are up to date with the latest components.
Update 2:
Note that this is an old question asked before tools like NuGet or OpenWrap existed. If anyone is willing to provide a more up-to-date, please go ahead and I will change the accepted answer.
Find some place to store the assemblies. For example, I store the .Net core assemblies like so:
<branch>\NetFX\2.0527\*
<branch>\NetFX\3.0\*
<branch>\NetFX\3.5\*
<branch>\NetFX\Silverlight 2\*
<branch>\NetFX\Silverlight 3\*
Use the ReferencePath property in MSBuild (or AdditionalReferencePath in Team Build) to point your projects at the appropriate paths. For simplicity and easy maintenance, I have 1 *.targets file that knows about every such directory; all of my projects Import that file.
Make sure your version control strategy (branching, merging, local<->server mappings) keeps the relative paths between your projects & your reference paths constant.
EDIT
In response to the update in the question, let me add one more step:
4) Make sure every assembly reference in every project file uses the full .Net strong name and nothing else.
Bad:
<Reference Include="Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo">
<SpecificVersion`>False</SpecificVersion>
<HintPath>..\..\..\..\..\..\..\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Shared\Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo.dll</HintPath>
</Reference>
Good:
<Reference Include="Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91, processorArchitecture=MSIL" />
Advantages of the latter format:
Using a HintPath in a collaborative development environment will inevitably lead to situations where "it works for me" but not others. Especially your build server. Omitting it forces you to get your reference paths correct or it won't compile.
Using a weak name invites the possibility of "DLL hell." Once you use strong names then it's safe to have multiple versions of the same assembly in your reference paths because the linker will only load ones that match every criterion. In addition, if you decide to update some assemblies in place (instead of adding copies), then you'll be notified of any breaking changes at compile time instead of whenever the bugs start coming in.
Adding to what everybody else is saying, it basically comes down to two things:
Making sure that all developers have the same versions of external libraries
Making sure that all developers have the external libraries located in the same place (at least, relative to the source code)
As Richard Berg points out, you can use ReferencePath and/or AdditionalReferencePath to help solve #2. If you're using msbuild in your build process (in our case, we're using CruiseControl instead of MS Team Build), you can also pass ReferencePath to it on the command line. To solve #1, I've found svn:externals to be useful (if you're using SVN).
My experience with Maven is that it's way overkill for most purposes.
I usually have a separate folder structure on the source control for extrenal or Internal dependencies, and these filders have the assemblies according to build or version number for example
public\External\libraries\Nunit\2.6\
or
Public\Internal\libraries\Logger\5.4.312\
and inside the solutions all the projects that need to use any of the dependencies just adds a reference to that assemblies in the public internal or extrenal folders.