I have a Visual Studio (2008) solution consisting of several projects, not all in the same namespace. When I build the solution, all the DLL files used by the top level project, TopProject, are copied into the TopProject\bin\debug folder. However, the corresponding .pdb files are only copied for some of the other projects. This is a pain, for example when using NDepend.
How does Visual Studio decide which .pdb files to copy into higher level bin\debug folders? How can I get Visual Studio to copy the others too?
References are as follows: all the DLL files are copied to a central location, without their PDB files. TopProject only has references to these copied DLL files; the DLL files themselves, however, evidently know where their PDB files are, and (most of them) get copied to the debug folder correctly.
From MSDN:
A program database (PDB) file holds
debugging and project state
information that allows incremental
linking of a Debug configuration of
your program. A PDB file is created
when you compile a C/C++ program with
/ZI or /Zi or a Visual
Basic/C#/JScript .NET program with
/debug.
So it looks like the "issue" here (for lack of a better word) is that some of your DLLs are being built in debug mode (and hence emitting PDB files), and some are being built in release mode (hence not emitting PDB files). If that's the case, it should be easy to fix -- go into each project and update its build settings. This would be the default scenario, if you haven't done any tweaking of command line options.
However, it will get trickier if that isn't the case. Maybe you're all in release or debug mode. Now you need to look at the command line compile options (specified in the project properties) for each project. Update them to /debug accordingly if you want the debugger, or remove it if you don't.
Edit in Response to Edit
Yes, the DLL files "know" that they have PDB files, and have paths to them, but that doesn't mean too much. Copying just DLL files to a given directory, as others have mentioned, won't clear this issue up. You need the PDB files as well.
Copying individual files in Windows, with the exception of certain "bundle"-type files (I don't know Microsoft's term for this, but "complete HTML packages" are the concept) doesn't copy associated files. DLL files aren't assembled in the "bundle" way, so copying them leaves their PDB file behind.
I'd say the only answer you're going to have is to update your process for getting the DLL files to those central locations, and include the PDB files ... I'd love to be proven wrong on that, though!
First off, never assume anything. Clean the solution, rebuild it in debug mode, and check to see if all PDB files are created. If not, that's your problem.
If they are created, and they're not all getting copied, you can get around this by creating a post build event that manually copies the PDB files to the desired locations. This is just a workaround, of course.
The only other thing I can think of is that your solution file has become corrupt. You can open your .sln as an XML file and examine the contents. Check the configuration for the projects that are acting as expected and compare them to those that aren't. If you don't see anything, you have to repeat this at the project level. Compare working .csproj (or whatever) project files and the non-working ones.
Edit in response to edit:
If you're just manually copying stuff around, then manually copy the PDF files as well. DLL files shouldn't "know" anything about PDB files, I believe. Just stick them in the destination directory and go have a cup of coffee. Relax.
Check when you clean the solution, that it is actually cleaned.
I've seen Visual Studio leave files hanging around in bin\debug directories even after cleaning. Delete the bin\debug directory on all of your projects and rebuild.
As other posts have said, you may have a compiler/corruption issue.
But, as Will said, if the PDB files are being created, but not showing up where you want them, create a post-build step. Here is the post-build step I define for every project in my solution. It makes sure all output files are copied into a common directory.
If your project file is in \SolutionDir\ProjDir, then the first line of the post-build step will copy the output files to \Solution\Bin\Release or \Solution\Bin\Debug. The second line copies the PDB file if this is a debug build. I don't copy the PDB file for release builds.
So, \SolutionDir\Bin now contains all your output files in one location.
xcopy /r /y $(TargetPath) $(ProjectDir)..\$(OutDir)
if $(ConfigurationName) == Debug xcopy /r /y $(TargetDir)$(TargetName).pdb $(ProjectDir)..\$(OutDir)
Related
I have a solution in VS 2010 containing 5 C# projects, 1 C++ project and 1 VB project. My solution has a solution folder "Dependencies" that replicates a file-system folder with the same name. The solution folder has a number of .dll files and some .xml files in it.
When I build my solution, all but one of the .dll files are copied from that folder to my output directory. I've looked at the file in Visual Studio for Copy Local property that is referenced here, the property is not there for any of that files in that folder.
I've looked at all the projects in my solution, and none of them are actually referencing that dll directly which I'm assuming is why it's not being copied. The problem lies in that one of the dlls that IS referenced by one of my projects depends on the dll not being copied.
I tried to add the problem dll as a reference in my projects and I get the following error
A reference to "dll" could not be added, Please make sure that the file is accessible, and that it is a valid assembly or COM component.
I don't really care if it's a COM component or that it's valid etc... because I need it to output.
My question is: How can I beat Visual Studio into submission and force it to copy the dll?
No need to beat anything, just add the DLL to one of the projects with Project + Add Existing Item. Any will do but you'd normally favor the one that has the dependency on this DLL. Your EXE project if you are not sure. it isn't clear if it matters, but use the arrow on the Add button to select "Add as Link" so the file doesn't get copied to the project directory. Afterwards, select it and change its Copy to Output Directory property to "Copy if Newer".
Do keep an eye on source control, this DLL probably needs to be checked-in. So having it in the dependent project directory is actually a good place for it.
Using xcopy.exe in a Post-Build event is otherwise a general way to copy dependent files that the build system doesn't know about or puts in the wrong place.
When I create a new project in Visual Studio, after a session of working, the folder of the project is always filled with "junk" such as the ipch (precompiled header) folder, the debug folders, sql database files that I never made...
In short, is it possible to just keep the source files inside the folder of the project, and either
automatically delete every other junk files after closing VS, or
choose a different temporary folder for those junk to go in?
You can delete ipch, Release, Debug, x64 directories and also *.suo and *.sdf files. That will cause the compiler to re-create those files on the next run and maybe it needs some extra time to do so.
Plus, the *.suo files keep track of your open files, cursor positions in them, etc. You return to a clean slate in VS if you delete them, but you don't loose any source code.
You can use the post-build event and delete the files using standard dos commands, or you can run a powershell script for example in the post build event. As for when you close visual studio, I don't think you can do this, you would need some sort of event and a third party script or application.
get from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8440/visual-studio-optimizations#8473
The standard setup for .NET solutions is that each assembly gets its
own bin directory to which it is copied along with the assemblies of
all its dependencies. If your solution contains an .EXE file and, say,
40 different assemblies. Does it really make sense to copy the
dependencies of each assembly to each separate build directory? The
target directory of the EXE should be enough. Another way to
accomplish roughly the same would be to give the assemblies common
output directories. That also avoids the copying. Some earlier
versions of Visual Studio did not support this well, so be careful. I
have, however, been using this approach with VS2008 for quite a while
without noticing any problems.
question - how to disable creating "bin" etc for all child projects? Thanks
Edit - there is a more comprehensive answer at Optimizing Visual Studio solution build - where to put DLL files?.
Create top level /bin/ folders above all your child projects. Then for each project, right click and go to properties. On the build tab, you can amend the "Output path" to point to your new top level bin with a relative path (e.g. ../bin/Debug or ../bin/Release). You should do this for each build configuration (e.g. Debug and Release).
This should result in each assembly being copied just once to the same location.
Note I've checked this procedure in VS2008 but I suspect it is similar in 2010.
Im setting up a svn repository and wondering where i should put the dll files.
What Ive currently done is put them in the /bin/debug folder and then link them in my project file in visual studio.
is this the way to do it?
I presume you are asking about third party dll files, because the output (exe/dll) files generated by the project are better left unmanaged by SVN, because they are regenerated on each and every build.
What I usualy do is create a Lib folder, that is on the top level of my source tree, and put all needed references there, usually in additional folder divided by tool or by functionality (logging, emailing, apis, etc, etc...)
You should not put anything from the bin/Debug or bin/Release in your source control. If you do that, you will lose them when you clean your solution or your projects.
What you have to do is create a folder, within the solution folder for example, and reference the dlls in your projects. Any third-party dll that is in the references of a project will be copied to the bin/Debug or bin/Release folder when the project is compiled.
We typically have a seperate folder called dlls or something where we keep all 3rd party dlls/assemblies
Dlls are only needed at runtime. For a quick fix, you may copy your dlls in the Debug folder where your .exe file is. This Debug folder is at the same level as the solution .sln file in Visual Studio. Which thing you will have to do each time you start a new project... Debug folder
A better solution would be to copy all third party dlls, plus all the corresponding .h and .lib files, in 2 folders, say C:\dev\include and C:\dev\lib, and then add these 2 folders to your path environment variable once for all. This way, you'll be able to access them from all your projects, without having to copy them over and over.
Now, if you want someone to be able to run your project on another computer, you'll need to copy all needed .h, .lib and .dll files in your project in a separate folders that you create, say include and lib again, in your project directory where your own program files are, as mentioned in the previous posts. Project folder
PS. Sorry, it would not let me upload the 2 screenshots, so click on links.
I typically put it in a Lib folder within my Visual Studio project solution folder. I would also create sub folders all the way to indicate whether the dll is for a 32 bit or 64 bit build and also which version of Visual Studio was used to build it. So something like this: Lib\WIN32\VC2015\ . Then in the Project Properties of the project, under the Debugging Configuration Property, I set Environment to
PATH=$(SolutionDir)Lib\WIN32\VC2015;%PATH%
By doing this, I can have separate dll folders for different project configurations if I want to and also the dll files are in a good place to check into source control as well.
This has to do with source control, I'm using VSS and the Visual Studio 2008 plugin. When the DLL of a referenced project gets included in a project (and checked into VSS), on the next build it will fail because those files aren't checked out as part of the build process and will be read only.
I could exclude the entire bin folder and all dlls, but that is where I put my static dlls (ie. the ones that aren't rebuilt as part of the solution) and interestingly, Visual Studio treats dlls other than outputs of other products as excluded files just fine.
In VS2005, the VSS plug in didn't automatically add the output of referenced projects as files pending check in, but in VS2008, it does.
Anyone run into this issue or find a work around?
It's better to not check in the bin folders at all. Move the dependencies to a common lib folder, and reference them from there. That will make sure they're copied into the bin folder. You can then explicitly check in this lib folder.
Other files/folders to avoid checking are the obj directory and the ncb file. I'm not sure how "smart" the VSS integration is in this case.