I have a solution which contains a lot of C# projects, how can I change the configuration of all projects very quickly, like I want to change the output folder from bin to MyBin. I know C++ property sheet can do the similar thing but C# doesn't have property sheet.
You can use a common 'partial' project file to store common stuff.
Move all the stuff that you want to be changed simultaneously into a stand-alone .proj file, e.g. common.proj:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<OutputPath>Debug</OutputPath>
<Platform>AnyCPU</Platform>
</PropertyGroup>
</Project>
Than use msbuild import declaration to 'include' common part into every project in your solution:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<Import Project="common.proj" />
</Project>
MsBuild imports work more or less in the same manner as C++ includes: before a project is built all the import directives are replaced with the content of the imported file. Now you can change your common properties just in one file - common.proj
There's one important thing to mention: VS caches included project files, so you'd have to reload all the projects after applying a change to common.proj file (so I suggest building from command-line when you actively change commom.proj)
We use this approach to manage code-analysis settings (as they are supposed to be the same across all the projects in the solution).
You have to define new Build Configuration, which can be copied from Release or from Debug or constructed all manually. After you can customize for every project it's option in regard of that custom build you just created and you done. This is done, naturally, only once. After, whenever you choose that custom build all properties chosen for every single project in solution will be set with the properties you want.
Rightclick on ALL projects in the solution, one-by-one.
Click 'unload' on each
then click "edit XXX.csproj" again on all of them
You will now have many XMLs opened as text files.
Now use the Find&Replace (control-shift-H if you use default shortcuts), and set:
Find what: OutputPath>bin\Debug</OutputPath
replace with: MyBin\Debug
Look in: All open documents
and hit Replace All.
Then do the same with bin\Release and MyBin\Release.
Then save all XMLs, then right-click on every project and choose "reload".
You can do the same in any text editor or any command-line find&replace utility like sed. If you ave any, use them instead - it will save you from rightlicking/unloading all projects.
You can also exploit the fact that CSPROJs are just MSBuild files, so you can create a 'configuration' MSBuild script that will be included each of your C# projects, and which will define extra variables like 'common output path' etc. But while this certainly works (I've did it a few times), it will most probably screw up some PropertySheets in the VS UI in the most natural way, for example, if you use this to override/setup the OutputPaths, then the VS UI wil display empty or broken output paths and trying to use the VS UI to correct/change them will in turn overwrite your smart settings that read them from common config file. Obvious, isn't it.
EDIT: here it's quickly explained: Partial .csproj Files, however, please read my comments below too, just in case.
Related
Is it possible to hook into the Roslyn build process during a Visual Studio/TFS build, and if yes, is it possible to get a hold of the Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.Solution/Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.Project instance being used by Roslyn during compilation?
The way I see it, Jon is pretty much right in his comment. What I would suggest is to create an MSBuild task, which is your wanted hook into the build process.
Create an MSBuild project file (you've probably seen them already, it's those files that have the .targets extension). It looks something like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<UsingTask TaskName="MyNamespace.MyReferenceValidationTask" AssemblyFile="MyPath\MyNamespace.dll"/>
<Target
BeforeTargets="BeforeCompile"
Name="ValidationTarget">
<MyNamespace.MyReferenceValidationTask
SolutionRoot="$(SolutionDir)" />
</Target>
</Project>
The attribute in the "MyNamespace.MyReferenceValidationTask" tag "SolutionRoot" is your property in your task. All the macros that are available in Visual Studio are also available here. (see this post here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1453023/978594)
What you do inside of the task is entirely up to you. You can, for example, load your solution file with Roslyn and thus have all the projects and their references and do your desired validation.
What is the easiest way to create a build configuration in approximately 50-100 projects (same solution) IF Visual Studio has already detected the build configuration from another project?
Our team uses a set of common projects (namespace is simply "Common") within several solutions. The Common namespace has it's own master solution with its own set of build configurations. Common's solution contains five build configurations ("Debug-QA", "Debug-Dev", etc.).
Whenever these projects are used within a NEW solution (ie "MyNewSolution"), Visual Studio shows the build configurations from Common's master solution. Unfortunately, these configurations have not yet been created in MyNewSolution or any of MyNewSolution's projects. This creates a problem for ADDING the build configurations to the other projects, or including the projects in these build configurations, since there is no way to CREATE a build configuration if the name already exists (which Visual Studio thinks it does, thanks to the Common projects being included).
My goal is to add the same configurations (ie "Debug-QA", "Debug-Dev", etc.) into MyNewSolution, and its projects, so that all of the projects and solutions match. The only way I can see to do this is to manually create the build configuration on each new project... which is torture since MyNewSolution has approximately 50-100 projects.
FYI: I'm using Visual Studio 2012
This is more of a hack than a proper solution, but you could always:
Create a a copy of the configuration you want for the entire solution with a GUID as its name.
Remove the copy from the projects which already have the original configuration (undo changes).
Rename the GUID to the original configuration's name using the "Find/Replace in Files" tool.
Even if it isn't a very viable option, it is a pretty good quick fix.
EDIT:
How to manually remove configurations from solutions:
With the solution file opened in a text editor, you will see a block called Global which contains sections. The SolutionConfigurationPlatforms section contains the configuration's definitions. There is also an other section called ProjectConfigurationPlatforms where the configurations are assigned. Simply remove the references to the configuration from both groups and that should do it. If you have more complex solutions, there might be other references to remove. This is just a base case.
How to manually remove configurations from projects:
Again, with the project file opened in a text editor, you will see many references to the configuration you want to remove. C# projects have a PropertyGroup with the configuration as a condition. You can simply remove the group entirely. There might be other references to the configuration around the file so make sure to clean everything properly.
Make sure that you have a backup of your files if something goes wrong.
If there is very little project-level customization of the target configurations, this would probably be simplest to manage via an externalized configuration imported into your individual projects via the MSBuild Import element.
In order to allow project-specific overrides, this Import should be placed near the top of the project files. e.g.:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="12.0" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<Import Project="..\..\CommonConfig.targets" Condition="Exists('..\..\CommonConfig.targets')" />
<PropertyGroup>
<Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration>
<Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">AnyCPU</Platform>
...
This would, unfortunately, require you to edit all the project files once to add the Import. However, once this is done, you would be able to add a configuration to the imported .targets file and have it automatically propagate to all the projects.
I can't tell you what will work best for you, but I can say from experience that it becomes very easy to create new solution spaces with 50+ projects from old solution spaces when you don't let Visual Studio write the project files. Instead, you can take off-the-shelf third-party software that will read some configuration files you give it and in a few seconds will spit out a solution and all the projects you need, all configured the way you need them to be.
The same software would also generate the standalone "Common" solution when you just want to compile the common projects.
The right software will give you the flexibility and power that makefiles provide when you're setting up your projects, but you still get to do your work in Visual Studio.
I've used CMake extensively in that role, but for C++ rather than C#. I'm very happy with CMake; I have used it in environments with 50+ projects whose source code is scattered so far and wide that I use scripts to find it all, with some third-party libraries that are brought in as precompiled DLLs or LIBs. Also, from experience I know there's nothing stopping someone from concurrently maintaining their own hand-crafted set of VS project files for the same source code if they really want to. But of course you may want to do your own shopping around for the best software for your environment.
It is a significant investment of time to convert several dozen projects from hand-crafted project files to a more makefile-like system, but in an environment that requires reconfiguring or recombining the projects many times, I felt the investment paid back rather quickly.
We have a VS2012 solution with a dozen or so C# projects in it. One of the C# projects makes use of a text file, which is converted to SQL by a separate C# tool we've written. We want to automatically invoke this TXT-2-SQL file conversion during a build whenever the TXT file has changed (Release and Debug build).
Furthermore, we'd like the Debug build to cause the SQL to be loaded into the local DB; ie, invoke one of our existing batch files, populate_db.bat, with the SQL filename as an argument (this just wraps the invocation of the mysql client and causes the SQL to be executed).
What's the best way to do this?
From my own research, I've found the following choices:
Custom MSBuild Task - create a separate assembly containing a class implementing ITask; reference it from our csproj; let that task do the work just described.
Custom Build Tool (Single File Generators) - create a separate assembly containing a class implementing IVsSingleFileGenerator; register that on each dev machine; use that tool name in the 'Custom Build Tool' item in the properties of the aforementioned TXT file in our existing csproj
C++ Makefile project - use CustomBuild or CustomBuildTool statements in an otherwise empty C++ Makefile project; Include TXT file of interest in that other project file; Add that project to solution.
Target + Execs - Add custom target nodes to our existing csproj:
<Target Name="TXT2DB"
AfterTargets="Build"
Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == 'Debug' "
Inputs="MyTextFile.txt"
Outputs="MySqlFile.sql"
Label="TXT2DB" >
<Exec Command="$(ProjectDir)\Tools\txt2sql\txt2sql.exe MyTextFile.txt MySqlFile.sql" />
<Exec Command="populate_db.bat MySqlFile.sql" />
</Target>
Post Build Events - use post build events. Mentioned for completeness, but discarded b/c it happens in both debug and release, and doesn't seem to be sensitive to a TXT file change.
Currently, we've selected #4 as the easiest to impl and maintain solution, and satisfies all the requirements.
I am trying to set global rules for my team. We are using VS2012 with TFS for our C# projects. I'd like to suppress some of the warnings and also treat some of the warnings as errors. I found the way to do it on the project level - project properties -> build tab.
But we have solution with more than hundred projects and I am looking for some easier way to set those rules globally.
A solution is just a (pretty dumb) container for projects. If you open it in a text editor you'll quickly see you can't extend it, only add projects/items.
What you want is one or more common msbuild files specifying all needed options for compiler/linker/whatever tools you use, and Import it in every single project. We've been using this for years and it's very convenient (though part of the convenience is probably we also wrote a small tool to generate project files to automatically import the global properties so we don't have to mess with them manually)
Alternatively you could add a machine wide file, look in $(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets to see where to place those files. I'm not going to copy/paste the content here, but the very first lines basically check if there are user definded files in eg $(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\$(MSBuildToolsVersion)\$(MSBuildThisFile)\ImportBefore and if so they're all imported before all common msbuild stuff. Likewise the end of the Microsoft.CSharp.targets contains similar logic to import files after all common msbuild stuff.
As of MSBuild 15 (circa 2017) you can use Directory.Build.Props file in the top folder of your solution. The syntax is the same as csproj, fsproj, or vbproj file and the entries are treated as though they are injected into all project files. You will need to restart Visual Studio to apply the changes. (thanks Jumbo!)
<Project>
<PropertyGroup>
<WarningsAsErrors>CS4014, CS1998</WarningsAsErrors>
</PropertyGroup>
</Project>
I have a C# project in vs2010 that has several build options (Debug, Release, Debug x86, Debug I Just Got A New Hat, etc), because some people have gone a bit overboard in adding projects.
I want to revert all of that to just the four basic build types:
debug x86
release x86
debug x64
release x64
I remove a project, save the sln with that project apparently no longer in the solution, and then add it back, but apparently the settings for the project have been saved. Is there any way to remove these extraneous projects entirely from the build manager and start from scratch short of creating a new SLN file?
The impetus for fixing this problem is that one of the projects in the solution won't allow for an x64 build to be made. If I try to create an x64 build for that project, the build manager states that the x64 build already exists, even when though clearly does not. The build manager isn't allowing me to remove build modes, just add them, but then it doesn't let me add the x64, which is what I'm needing.
Quickest way is to manually edit the .proj files in notepad, removing all the
<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'NewHat|x64' ">...</PropertyGroup>
elements for each configuration. Then finally remove the unwanted solution configurations by again editing the .sln file in notepad. They are easy to spot.
Once removed, you should be able to open up the solution in VS and set things right in the configuration manager
The alternatives are to use a macro or VS EnvDTE classes to automate the process but that's perhaps the sledgehammer for a nut.
Normally I don't recommend doing this but you may need to take Notepad or your favourite XML editor and change the contents of your csproj file. The reason I don't like to recommend this approach is that if you get the editing wrong you can end up with a broken project.
Obviously you should back everything up before you start so you can at least get back to your current state if everything goes pear shaped.
Ideally you can dig into your Source Code Control system and get a copy of the csproj file from back when it wasn't broken and use that as a rough guide to what a well formed csproj file for your project looks like.
You can also create a completely new C# project using the same template as your project and use that project's csproj file as another guide to what things should look like.
If you're lucky your csproj file will contain a number of PropertyGroup items, some of which will have a condition identifying the particular build combination the group applies to. For example...
<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Release|x64'">
<OutputPath>bin\x64\Release\</OutputPath>
<DefineConstants>TRACE</DefineConstants>
<Optimize>true</Optimize>
<DebugType>pdbonly</DebugType>
<PlatformTarget>x64</PlatformTarget>
</PropertyGroup>
If you delete the groups for configurations you no longer want and delete any that seem to apply to x64 you may find that the build manager will let you add an x64 configuration.