What is the difference between Build Solution, Rebuild Solution, and Clean Solution in Visual Studio?
When is the appropriate time to use each one of these?
Build solution will perform an incremental build: if it doesn't think it needs to rebuild a project, it won't. It may also use partially-built bits of the project if they haven't changed (I don't know how far it takes this)
Rebuild solution will clean and then build the solution from scratch, ignoring anything it's done before. The difference between this and "Clean, followed by Build" is that Rebuild will clean-then-build each project, one at a time, rather than cleaning all and then building all.
Clean solution will remove the build artifacts from the previous build. If there are any other files in the build target directories (bin and obj) they may not be removed, but actual build artifacts are. I've seen behaviour for this vary - sometimes deleting fairly thoroughly and sometimes not - but I'll give VS the benefit of the doubt for the moment :)
(The links are to the devenv.exe command line switches, but they do the same as the menu items.)
Build solution: Compiles code files (DLL and EXE) which are changed.
Rebuild: Deletes all compiled files and compiles them again irrespective if the code has changed or not.
Clean solution: Deletes all compiled files (DLL and EXE file).
You can see this YouTube video (Visual Studio Build vs. Rebuild vs. Clean (C# interview questions with answers)) where I have demonstrated the differences and below are visual representations which will help you to analyze the same in more detail.
The difference between Rebuild vs. (Clean + Build), because there seems to be some confusion around this as well:
The difference is the way the build and clean sequence happens for every project. Let’s say your solution has two projects, “proj1” and “proj2”. If you do a rebuild it will take “proj1”, clean (delete) the compiled files for “proj1” and build it. After that it will take the second project “proj2”, clean compiled files for “proj2” and compile “proj2”.
But if you do a “clean” and build”, it will first delete all compiled files for “proj1” and “proj2” and then it will build “proj1” first followed by “proj2”.
Taken from this link:
Build means compile and link only the source files that have changed
since the last build, while Rebuild
means compile and link all source
files regardless of whether they
changed or not. Build is the normal
thing to do and is faster. Sometimes
the versions of project target
components can get out of sync and
rebuild is necessary to make the build
successful. In practice, you never
need to Clean.
Build Solution - Builds any assemblies which have changed files. If an assembly has no changes, it won't be re-built. Also will not delete any intermediate files.
Used most commonly.
Rebuild Solution - Rebuilds all assemblies regardless of changes but leaves intermediate files.
Used when you notice that Visual Studio didn't incorporate your changes in the latest assembly. Sometimes Visual Studio does make mistakes.
Clean Solution - Delete all intermediate files.
Used when all else fails and you need to clean everything up and start fresh.
I just think of Rebuild as performing the Clean first followed by the Build. Perhaps I am wrong ... comments?
Build solution will build any projects in the solution that have changed. Rebuild builds all projects no matter what, clean solution removes all temporary files ensuring that the next build is complete.
Build Solution - Build solution will build your application with building the number of projects which are having any file change. And it does not clear any existing binary files and just replacing updated assemblies in bin or obj folder.
Rebuild Solution - Rebuild solution will build your entire application with building all the projects are available in your solution with cleaning them. Before building it clears all the binary files from bin and obj folder.
Clean Solution - Clean solution is just clears all the binary files from bin and obj folder.
The one major thing I think people are leaving out is that Build and Clean are both tasks that are performed based on Visual Studio's knowledge of your Project/Solution. I see a lot of complaining that Clean doesn't work or leaves leftover files or is not trustworthy, when in fact, the reasons you say it isn't trustworthy actually makes it more trustworthy.
Clean will only remove (clean) files and/or directories that Visual Studio or the compiler themselves have in fact created. If you copy your own files or files/folder structures get created from an outside tool or source, then Visual Studio doesn't "know they exist" and therefore, should not touch them.
Can you imagine if the Clean operation basically performed a "del *.*" ? This could be catastrophic.
Build performs a compile on changed or necessary projects.
Rebuild performs a compile regardless of change or what's necessary.
Clean removes files/folders it has created in the past, but leaves anything that it didn't have anything to do with, initially.
I hope this elaborates a bit and helps.
I have a a blank solution BuildRebuildClean and three class library Models,Repository,Notification.
I use Models and Repository in Notification class library.
Then:
Build solution Incremental build and compiles only the files that are changed. If an assembly has no changes,
it won’t be re-built. Also, it will not delete any intermediate files.
If Modify some code in Models library project, then BUILD solution.
In the below screen shot, refer to the time stamp of DLL, EXE is updated in Models and Notification library.
Rebuild solution Deletes all compiled files and compiles all irrespective of changes,
ignoring anything it’s done before.
Right click on the solution name BuildRebuildClean. What it does is deletes all the assemblies,
EXEs and referred files to compile again.
Clean Solution Deletes all compiled, intermediate files (i.e., EXEs and DLLs) from the bin/obj directory.
All I know is a Clean does not do what "make clean" used to do - if I Clean a solution I would expect it delete obj and bin files/folders such that it builds like is was a fresh checkout of the source. In my experience though I often find times where a Clean and Build or Rebuild still produces strange errors on source that is known to compile and what is required is a manual deletion of the bin/obj folders, then it will build.
This is concerning "Build Solution" option only.
I got totally fed up with Visual Studio's inability to really clean solutions and wrote this little tool that will do it for you.
Close your solution in VS first and drag its folder from Windows Explorer into this app or into its icon. Depending on the setting at the bottom of its window, it can also remove additional stuff, that will help if you try to manually upload your solution to GitHub or share it with someone else:
In a nutshell, it will place all "Debug" folders, Intellisense, and other caches that can be rebuilt by VS into Recycle Bin for you.
Clean will clean the artifacts in bin/Debug folder. Means deletes all the files in bin/Debug folder.
Build checks the artifacts in bin/Debug folder and if required then creates the artifacts (while checking for build time errors).
Rebuild = Clean + Build in a single go. This will first delete all the files in bin/Debug folder and then create the artifacts again in the bin/Debug folder.
One can confirm these operations by opening and observing the bin/Debug (or Release) folder and then Cleaning, building and rebuilding the project.
**Build ,Rebuild, Clean Solution**
Clean Solution
: deletes all compiled files (all dll’s and exe’s ).
Build Solution
: compiles code files (dll and exe) that have changed.
Rebuild Solution
: Deletes all compiled files and Compiles them again regardless of whether or not the code has changed.
A two-part question ... but all answers (except from Justin Niessner) only focus on part 1: the difference. The second part is what I find more interesting: "When is the appropriate time to use each one of these?". But let me start with how I think of what each does:
Build: Should and usually does: generate (build) each intermediate and output file that is out-of-date with respect to its source files.
Rebuild: A workaround (hack) that allows you to build when the build command fails due to a bug with out-of-date evaluation.
Clean: A hacky implementation of deleting generated (intermediate and output) files so that a subsequent build might work. Hacky since it often doesn't delete enough. VS designers put all intermediate and output files in separate directories. Why not delete the directories?!?!?! But, I digress.
There is no clean/clear way to know when to use one command vs another. Knowing what each does, does not really inform me about the appropriate situation to use each.
It's more about personality than science. An optimist uses Build most of the time, but resorts to Rebuild if Build fails and they think the issue is wonky behavior of Visual Studio. And if Rebuild fails, then they do Clean and Build. When that fails, they start googling...
More pessimistic folks always use Rebuild since its more reliable even though takes longer when used every time. The most pessimistic always do Clean then Rebuild. They forgot there is a Build command. They also wear a belt and suspenders.
Some might think this is cynical. But, I think not. I think the UX of Visual Studio is bad and that users and the industry have gotten used to it. Worse, many other tools adopted the same UX since VS is ubiquitous.
IMO, Microsoft should: fix Build, fix Clean and eliminate Rebuild
Build solution only builds those projects which have changed in the solution, and does not effect assemblies that have not changed,
ReBuild first cleans, all the assemblies from the solution and then builds entire solution regardless of changes done.
Clean, simply cleans the solution.
Related
This happens sometimes when I make small changes to the source code, like removing a line of code or changing some value.
case A
change player.y = 100; to player.y = 250;
compile code with CTRL+F5
player still appear at y: 100
change player.symbol = "O"; to player.symbol = "P";
compile code with CTRL+F5
player now appear at the correct location y: 250
So far I've tried
Clean Solution - this works, but I'd rather not have to rely on this whenever I make a change
Build is checked for the project under Build > Configuration Manager...
CTRL-SHIFT-B still compiles the wrong code.
running VS as administrator - still compiles the wrong code.
I've looked at the executable's creation date. It doesn't update when I compile.
deleting the executable before compiling re-creates the same executable without the changes.
I had the same issue on another visual studio installation on the same computer
The project is located on a local hard drive.
edit:
I found this link. The problem seem to be very similar, although when testing right now it extends to more than just editing float numbers. I'm using Visual Studio Community Version 15.7.1, but had this problem prior to patching as well.
This doesn't seem to occur (so far) while building for debug.
It may seem like a pain, but after making any significant changes it is usually a good idea to clean the solution and rebuild the project. You may think that recompiling a single translation unit will work and in some cases that may be true, but if other object files rely on the translation unit you just updated they need to be recompiled as well otherwise visual studio will use the older object files that have previously been built.
As for CTRL+F5 whether you are in debug or release mode just tells Visual Studio that you want to run without debugging as it has nothing to do with the compilation and building of the project or solution. Are you sure you are not confusing CTRL+F5 with CTRL+F7 as user SoronelHateir has mentioned in the commmets? After you make any changes to source code it is good to first recompile that individual file to make sure there are no compilation errors. Then it is good to rebuild that current project within the solution.
On the other hand if your solution has multiple projects for example: one project is a library that is statically linked and the other project is your main executable project and the changes you made are in your library and depending on how the main project depends on the library project you will probably have to more than likely at the least rebuild the library project and in some cases you may even have to rebuild the main startup project. Most of the times just rebuilding the statically linked library should suffice; it is rare that the main program that is linking the library would have to be rebuilt to see the new changes, but there are some rare cases that both will have to be rebuilt.
I'll say it again; yes it may seem like a pain to have to do a clean solution and complete rebuild, but after a while this is the safest path to travel to ensure that all of the object files are up to date. What you are seeing in your own solution is a side effect of running the program with updated code but the output matches that of the older object files. This is a result of the IDE using the older or stale object files that already exist since you did not rebuild the solution. Cleaning the solution clears out all of the old object files as well as any intermediate files that are used to compile the source code into translation units to make the appropriate object files.
There are settings within the IDE that others have mentioned above such as user: Bo Persson has stated from their answer that you can change the behavior of how Visual Studio will recompile, rebuild a project or solution.
In visual studio, after making changes, I always click(in the menu bar):
Build -- Rebuild Solution
Note that this is different from "CTRL+F5" and "CTRL-SHIFT-B"
And it will always pick up all the changes and recompile your program
I tried everything mentioned in the current solutions and it didn't work for me. However after a lot of frustration I realized I was running my debugger. Try going to the Debug tab then press Stop Debugging. Finally make sure to select Release from this dropdown box(Mine was on Debug).
I'm new on a project and the building is quite slow.
Now I see as a postbuild event the next action for a lot of projects:
<PostBuildEvent>rd "$(ProjectDir)obj" /S /Q</PostBuildEvent>
I've read that the obj folder keeps track of the builds so incremental builds can be faster, so I thought maybe this has something to do with it.
However, nobody in my team know why this is done, the removal of this folder, so I'm a bit hesitant to just remove the build action.
What can be a reason to perform this action?
A couple of things come to mind (all rather questionable by themselves):
Custom build steps in the same, or - God forbid - other project that requires it (for the next build to succeed).
A (misguided) attempt to preserve disk space (since all "precious" is in "bin" after the build you technically don't need "obj").
A (misguided) attempt to implement "clean, clobber, etc."-semantics
One needs more information about the complete build system, other projects, etc. you have in place to find out more or better reasons - if at all ;-)
The single possible reason to perform such kind of action is lack of knowledge about power of MSBuild utility.
I believe that target requirement (if it exist) could be achived another way, which will not omit the incremental build feature.
Try to find the author of that string in VCS you are using, and if author is unavailable or could not answer the question, warn your colleagues and remove it and see what happens.
There is a bug in Visual Studio where if you move the obj directory with the IntermediateOutputPath defined in the project file then the compiler still creates an empty obj directory any way. I do both myself, but with VS2010. If VS2015 has this fixed you may be able to remove it.
Still unsure about all the BUILD options.
If I just want to over-write the .exe file in the Solutions bin\Debug directory all I need to do is choose Build ?
ReBuild has another purpose?
Clean I assume is if it has bugged at a point creating problems within the Solution?
I've referred to this page on MSDN but it doesn't refer to specific directories within the solution.
Build - does incremental builds (doesn't bother updating stuff that hasn't changed)
Rebuild - does a Clean then a Build
Clean - just clears all intermediate build files (obj and bin directory)
Look here for more info:
Difference between Rebuild and Clean + Build in Visual Studio
The answers there point out some of the subtleties
I have a C# project which includes one exe and 11 library files. The exe references all the libraries, and lib1 may reference lib2, lib3, lib4, etc.
If I make a change to a class in lib1 and built the solution, I assumed that only lib1 and the exe would need to be changed. However, all dll's and the exe are being built if I want to run the solution.
Is there a way that I can stop the dependencies from being built if they have not been changed?
Is the key this phrase? "However, all dll's and the exe are being built if I want to run the solution"
Visual Studio will always try to build everything when you run a single project, even if that project doesn't depend on everything. This choice can be changed, however. Go to Tools|Options|Projects and Solutions|Build and Run and check the box "Only build startup projects and dependencies on Run". Then when you hit F5, VS will only build your startup project and the DLLs it depends on.
I just "fixed" the same problem with my VS project. Visual Studio did always a rebuild, even if didn't change anything. My Solution: One cs-File had a future timestamp (Year 2015, this was my fault). I opened the file, saved it and my problem was solved!!!
I am not sure if there is a way to avoid dependencies from being built. You can find some info here like setting copylocal to false and putting the dlls in a common directory.
Optimizing Visual Studio solution build - where to put DLL files?
We had a similar problem at work. In post-build events we were manually embedding manifests into the outputs in the bin directory. Visual Studio was copying project references from the obj dir (which weren't modified). The timestamp difference triggered unnecessary rebuilds.
If your post-build events modify project outputs then either modify the outputs in the bin and obj dir OR copy the modified outputs in the bin dir on top of those in the obj dir.
You can uncheck the build option for specified projects in your Solution configuration:
(source: microsoft.com)
You can can create your own solution configurations to build specific project configurations...
(source: microsoft.com)
We actually had this problem on my current project, in our scenario even running unit tests (without any code changes) was causing a recompile. Check your build configuration's "Platform".
If you are using "Any CPU" then for some reason it rebuilds all projects regardless of changes. Try using processor specific builds, i.e. x86 or x64 (use the platform which is specific to the machine architecture of your machine). Worked for us for x86 builds.
(source: episerver.com)
Now, after I say this, some propeller-head is going to come along and contradict me, but there is no way to do what you want to do from Visual Studio. There is a way of doing it outside of VS, but first, I have a question:
Why on earth would you want to do this? Maybe you're trying to save CPU cycles, or save compile time, but if you do what you're suggesting you will suddenly find yourself in a marvelous position to shoot yourself in the foot. If you have a library 1 that depends upon library 2, and only library 2 changes, you may think you're OK to only build the changed library, but one of these days you are going to make a change to library 2 that will break library 1, and without a build of library 2 you will not catch it in the compilation. So in my humble opinion, DON'T DO IT.
The reason this won't work in VS2005 and 2008 is because VS uses MSBuild. MSBuild runs against project files, and it will examine the project's references and build all referenced projects first, if their source has changed, before building the target project. You can test this yourself by running MSBuild from the command line against one project that has not changed but with a referenced project that has changed. Example:
msbuild ClassLibrary4.csproj
where ClassLibrary4 has not changed, but it references ClassLibrary5, which has changed. MSBuild will build lib 5 first, before it builds 4, even though you didn't mention 5.
The only way to get around all these failsafes is to use the compiler directly instead of going through MSBuild. Ugly, ugly, but that's it. You will basically be reduced to re-implementing MSBuild in some form in order to do what you want to do.
It isn't worth it.
Check out the following site for more detailed information on when a project is built as well as the differences between build and rebuild.
I had this problem too, and noticed these warning messages when building on Windows 7 x64, VS2008 SP1:
cl : Command line warning D9038 : /ZI is not supported on this platform; enabling /Zi instead
cl : Command line warning D9007 : '/Gm' requires '/Zi'; option ignored
I changed my project properties to:
C/C++ -> General -> Debug Information Format = /Zi
C/C++ -> Code Generation -> Enable Minimal Build = No
After rebuilding I switched them both back and dependencies work fine again. But prior to that no amount of cleaning, rebuilding, or completely deleting the output directory would fix it.
I don't think there's away for you to do it out of the box in VS. You need this add-in
http://workspacewhiz.com/
It's not free but you can evaluate it before you buy.
Yes, exclude the non-changing bits from the solution. I say this with a caveat, as you can compile in a way where a change in build number for the changed lib can cause the non built pieces to break. This should not be the case, as long as you do not break interface, but it is quite common because most devs do not understand interface in the .NET world. It comes from not having to write IDL. :-)
As for X projcts in a solution, NO, you can't stop them from building, as the system sees a dependency has changed.
BTW, you should look at your project and figure out why your UI project (assume it is UI) references the same library as everything else. A good Dependency Model will show the class(es) that should be broken out as data objects or domain objects (I have made an assumption that the common dependency is some sort of data object or domain object, of course, but that is quite common). If the common dependency is not a domain/data object, then I would rethink my architecture in most cases. In general, you should be able to create a path from UI to data without common dependencies other than non-behavioral objects.
Not sure of an awesome way to handle this, but in the past if I had a project or two that kept getting rebuilt, and assuming I wouldn't be working in them, I would turn the build process off for them.
Right click on the sln, select configuration manager and uncheck the check boxes. Not perfect, but works when Visual Studio isn't behaving.
If you continue to experience this problem, it may be due to a missing or out of date calculated dependency (like a header) that is listed in your project, but does not exist.
This happens to me especially common after migrating to a new version (for example: from 2012 to 2013) because VS may have recalculated dependencies in the conversion, or you are migrating to a new location.
A quick check is to double-click every file in offending project from solution explorer. If you discover a file does not exist, that is your problem.
Failing a simple missing file: You may have a more complicated build date relationship between source and target. You can use a utility to find out what front-end test is triggering the build. To get that information you can enable verbose CPS logging. See: Andrew Arnott - Enable C++ and Javascript project system tracing (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vsproject/archive/2009/07/21/enable-c-project-system-logging.aspx). I use the DebugView option. Invaluable tool when you need it.
(this is a C# specific question, but a different post was merged as identical)
I have experienced an annoying issue with Visual Studio 2005... sometimes when I rebuild, and even if I do a Rebuild Solution, it will come back with no errors or warnings, but then when I later edit another code file, even without changing it, and rebuild, it will find an error or warning in that other file. Clearly, the earlier Rebuild Solution did not recompile that file! How can I force VS to completely recompile every file?
I've seen this happen before when you have multiple projects in your solution and the references get mixed up.
Say you have four projects in your solution, Common, Business, Data, and UI. Assume that Common is referenced by the other three projects.
What we want is for Common to be a "project reference" from the other three projects - they'll then pick up their copy from the build output directory of Common.
But, sometimes, one of the projects will get it's reference mixed up. Say, in this case, that UI starts referencing the copy of Common in the build output directory of Data. Now, any change that compiles "UI" without also compiling "Data" will result in two, possibly incompatible, versions of "Common" being a dependency of UI.
Another scenario is where the reference is to a binary, such as from a "lib" directory. Then, one of the projects ends up referring to a build output location instead of lib.
I don't know what causes this - but I see it all the time, unfortunately.
The fix is to go through the references of each project and find the one (or more) that point to the wrong place.
It might help to clean the solution prior to rebuilding -- right click on the solution in the Solution Explorer and choose "clean solution" -- this deletes temporary files and is supposed to clear out the bin and obj folders, so everything is rebuilt.
I'm with Guy Starbuck here, but would add that Rebuild Solution is supposed to do a Clean Solution followed by Build Solution, which should, then, have solved your issue to begin with. But VS 2005 can be terrible in this regard. Sometimes it just starts working after several rebuilds. If upgrading to 2008 isn't an option, consider manually clearing the bin folder.
Is this related to the Configuration Manager? There you can select which projects in your solution build. Not sure if this helps.
Depending on the types of warnings it is not possible if I recall correctly.
For example, warning messages for XHTML compliance are ONLY displayed when the file is open. You might check the tolerance settings inside VS to see if you can change it.
This sounds strange - Rebuild should build everything regardless of changes and Build should only build things that have changed.
The behaviour you've described should only happen if you have modified something that is referenced by the unchanged file so that it is now incorrect.