I have 3 .net projects.
Project1.dll is generated by a VS2008 project.
Project2.dll is generated by a VS2005 project that references Project1.dll.
Project3.dll is generated by a VS2008 project that references both Project1.dll and Project2.dll.
Right now, I build Project1.dll, and manually copy it to the place where Project 2 can pick it up.
Then I build Project2.dll and manually copy it and Project1.dll to the place where Project 3 can pick them up.
Obviously I'm doing something wrong (manual). What is the correct way to keep my projects' references up to date?
Updating Project2 to VS2008 and then creating one solution containing all 3 projects is not an option at this time. We have a 3rd party visualstudio plugin that does not yet work in VS2008. Project2 must stay in VS2005
De-updating Project1 and Project3 to VS2005 and then creating one solution is not an option either. We're relying on C# 3.0 and .net 3.5 features in those projects.
Probably the best option would be to have a common build folder for all three projects. This can be done in the Project Properties-> Build -> Output path. Then point the references to the output folder. That way anytime you build any of the lower projects, the higher projects would have the latest versions. You can set the path per configurations (Debug, Release) as well, so you won't need to change that for each type of build.
How about a pre-build event for Project3, that goes out and uses a batch file to build Project1 copy it to Project2 folder and then build project2 and copy it to project3 folder.
I would recommend sharing the csproj/vbproj files between the solutions. The format of the project files is compatible between the two versions of studio (solution files are not, however), and as long as your VS2008 projects are targeting the 2.0 runtime you should have no trouble compiling them. This will allow you to reference the projects, which will take care of dependencies.
The only place where this gets hairy is if you have a web project that needs to work between the two versions of studio. In that case there are some modifications to the project files which will point to the correct MSBuild target files.
We use a build script that handles the dependencies, builds the DLLs and does what you're doing manually.
A trick I have used in the past is to move everything to 2008. Then I setup a special solution in 2005 for project two and use it to work with the addin. Getting this to work just depends on how bad project two behaves in 2008.
Related
I have a solution which I have a number of unloaded projects. When I build the solution locally the unloaded projects are obviously not built. In Configuration Manager, I can't even select configuration, platform, build and deploy options for the unloaded projects.
Now I have created an Azure Pipeline which also builds the solution. But the unloaded projects are still being built.
How can I exclude building projects in my pipeline?
Now I have created an Azure Pipeline which also builds the solution.
But the unloaded projects are still being built.
Both Azure Devops Pipeline and VS IDE would call msbuild.exe to build. When building a solution using msbuild, it actually is running command msbuild xx.sln /t:build ....
Check the content of xx.sln file (solution file) we can find it defines definitions about the projects within the solution. That's why if you build the solution, all these projects will be built. This is expected behavior when building whole solution. Sample .sln file:
And it's VS IDE's magic to exclude unloaded projects when building whole solution. The IDE will check the unloaded projects and skip them when building whole solution, it has advantage that the unloading project behavior in IDE won't modify your solution file. (It's important for solution under Git version control).
To sum up: It's expected that building solution will build all projects. When we unload the projects in VS, this action won't affect our source solution file or project file. VS will automatically skip the unloaded projects, which is the unique feature of IDE. (Unload is a UI action in VS, it has no effect on .sln/.xxproj file)
To exclude projects to build in Azure Devops:
1.Specify projects to build when building whole solution. (It doesn't change any file, so that it won't affect Version control)
You can check this answer and corresponding document. My devops task setting (no need to specify Build target):
2.Exclude projects from solution configuration (Not recommended) or create a new configuration that excludes specific projects (Recommended). The solution configuration is defined in solution file (sln), so this way would makes effect on Source control.
Exclude projects from solution configuration(Not recommended):
Create a new configuration that excludes specific projects:
Related document here. I suggest you can do the changes via VS IDE, and then push the commits to remote repo. It's complex if you're not familiar with msbuild and sln file, so I doesn't suggest doing that yourself. Let IDE do the job for you.
Once the remote repo get the changes:
We can build the solution in devops with customrelease configuration which excludes ProjectA and ProjectB instead of release configuration which contains all projects.
All these workarounds had been tested on my side before posting them.
Sorry about the newbie question but I could not find an answer anywhere: I have a Visual Studio 2010 project (C#) with several dependencies on other projects in the same solution. When I debug the project and try to step into code in one of the dependencies, it steps over instead. Also, it seems that it is using a previous, installed version of the dependency instead of using the one in the solution.
How can I make it use the one in the solution and allow step-into?
Figured it out.
The dependencies' compiled versions were installed in the GAC - needed to take them out first.
Needed to turn on Tools->Options->Debugging->General->Enable Just My Code.
Needed to set Copy Local to True for each dependency in the target project.
Like everyone here pointed out, needed to re-build all dependencies first, in Debug mode.
Thanks everyone for your help!
When you add the projects as references, add them using the "projects" tab (of the "add references" dialog) instead of adding them as binary DLLs.
A project's output is only copied to the referencing project's bin folder if the dependent project is build. If the project is used in more than one solution, it may have been compiled previously but it won't update projects in the open solution. If the source is unchanged relative to the binary files, then the project is not compiled and the bin folder is not updated. Use Rebuild or Clean after opening the solution to ensure the projects are in sync.
Also check in Configuration Manager that all the projects have a Build checked.
We have a solution file that contains some solution folders: libraries, unit-tests, applications, etc.
With Visual Studio 2010 we can build only the projects of a given folder by right-clicking on it and using "build" or "rebuild".
This is perfect on the developers' workstations, and we'd like to do the same on the continuous-integration server which uses MSBuild.
So, can we build a solution folder with MSBuild?
Or will we have to create a dedicated solution for each folder?
The conclusion of the below responses is that there isn't any built-in way to do that, but some workarounds:
create a dedicated solution with only the selected projects,
use a dedicated csproj that will build the selected projects,
add a new project which will reference the selected projects in the existing solution file.
I've chosen to use a dedicated solution file as it is the less intrusive and tricky way, though not the more flexible (the dedicated .csproj solution should offer full control).
Yes, you can build Solutions folders using MSBuild.
msbuild "framework.sln" /t:First\Project:Build
will build the project in the folder called First. However, disk folders and solutions folders must match (I tried it for my solution where they don’t first).
So all you'd have to do is choose a project that has all the other projects in that folder as dependencies.
Also see:
MSBuild command-line reference
The short answer is:
Yes, if you want to build specific set
of projects (grouped together in a VS
solution) with plain MSBuild you will
have to create a dedicated MSBuild
.proj for each specific set of
projects you want to build.
You will not have to create (and maintain) Visual Studio solutions to support your build, but in the end it's the same (an MSBuild .proj vs. a Visual Studio solution).
I have a similar scenario with a set of 60+ .NET projects (.btprpj BizTalk). For developing in Visual Studio, these projects are currently organized in 12 Visual Studio solutions.
For automated build and deploy I created a set of 50+ MSBuild .proj scripts to target every single component (or set of components) I need.
MSBuild offers a lot of possibilities for automating all the stuff around the actual build of the Visual Studio projects (export from version control systems, etc.).
Here's my specific scenario: Using VS2010, Pex and TFS2008, generated moles files are getting automatically added to source-control (TFS).
Pex adds a "project_name.moles" file to your test project and then autogenerates 3 files at build time: project_name.Designer.cs, project_name.Moles.dll, and project_name.Moles.xml. I want to keep the *.moles files in TFS (it's source code) but I don't want the 3 generated files to be in TFS (they are still part of the project, but they are generated when first built on a new system).
There are two reasons I need this behavior:
1. It's not a good idea to store generated code in source-control (let's not debate the merits of that here).
2. Specially, the DLL file is BAD because every time someone builds, all moles files are regenerated and thus all files are checked-out and DLL files are checked-out EXCLUSIVELY (non-mergable) and so other people can no longer build on their local box.
The Pex/Moles team are working on this but the solution is still likely several months away.
Is there a csproj property that can be assigned to these project files so that they are in the project but not managed by version control? I don't mind hand-editing the csproj file.
Moles will not be adding any files to the project in the next version (v0.94). It will use MSBuild to generate the assemblies on demand.
I think it depends more on the version control tool than Visual Studio, as usually you can set up some kind of filters in your version control configuration in order to exclude some files/paths.
E.g. if you use Mercurial/Hg, you can (and should) edit your repository .hgignore file and specify e.g. to exclude all *.moles files and the whole sub-tree MolesAssemblies\*. I guess other version control systems have similar options.
Can someone briefly explain to me the difference between Visual Studio's solution file (.sln) and project file (.vcproj).
It seems to me opening either one open the correct solution/project in Visual Studio. Is one the super-set of the other?
Note: I am currently using Visual Studio 2008 working on a project that was brought forward from Visual Studio 2005 (I believe).
A solution is a set of projects. If you need more than one project in your software, then go with solutions. I.E.: A Class Library Project + A Web Application Project.
A project file typically corresponds to a single module: EXE or DLL or LIB. A solution manages a collection of project files.
A solution is a collection of projects. Visual Studio is made so that it cannot function without a solution, so if you open a bare project, it will generate the solution automatically (or try to find one).
One solution can contain zero or more projects. Everything is in projects, so a solution with zero projects doesn't contain anything at all besides the solution properties.
Visual studio keeps track of where the projects are used, so if you open a project file, it will open (IIRC) the last solution where it was used.
When you create a project from scratch, a solution is also created, but it's not shown until you add another project to it. It looks like you have only the project open, but it's actually a solution containing the project that is open.
Specifically project files are intended to contain the data required to build the files in the project into an exe or dll. This file is utilized by the local compilers or with systems such as Team Foundation system and server side build agents.
Solutions are a client (IDE) construct designed to manage collections of projects, which in effect is a collection of different build definitions and associated files.
Solution files are typically made up of multiple project files.