I'm new about code developing with Visual Studio 2010 and I would like to ask you a simple question about something after build a project.
I have a C# project and when I build It in Release mode some file are created and some of them copied from another in to \output\bin\Release\ folder. My question is that How can I manage that which created dll or created file will be in \output\bin\Release\ folder.
I tried to take a look at build properties of project but I could not find any option about it.
Thank you.
Actually I do not need this dll in my project output folder because I
add this dlls as a reference to my project
And this is exactly why this file appear in output folder.
There are several ways to "put" file in output folder. For normal files in the project you can set property Copy to Output Directory.
If we talking about dll's, (as mentioned Hans), there is Copy Local property for each assembly in References.
By default VS set this according to our GAC, so if you are using 3rd part assembly or from another project VS will set this property to True and file will be copied to output folder.
If you don't want to put this file in output folder, just set this property to False. But remember, at run time this assembly should exist.
For more information: How to: Set the Copy Local Property of a Reference
Another explanation: you just messed up with Output path in the project properties and two project has the same output folder. :)
I suggest that you ignore the extra files that are created. One way to do this is to configure the destination of these to a different location.
I use this:
property pages->General
- Output Directory = $(SolutionDir)..\link\
- Intermediate Directory = c:\temp\vc10\$(SolutionName)\$(Configuration)\
Use the same settings for debug and release.
Related
I have a WPF project that is now finished, and I want to publish the app into an installer that other people can use.
When I publish the project, the project compiles into setup.exe, but on install the folders that I have do not get included.
I've been reading the guides, and made sure to include the files inside the folders as Content or a Resource. I've also made sure they are always copied. When some of my files are copied, they have a .deploy extension, and I need it to be an .xml in order for some function to read them. Images that I have in the app load fine however.
What do I need to do to have my custom files be EXACTlY as they are, xml as xml, txt as txt and so on. Also I have some empty folders, like this TempCF that I use at some point. Do i need to create it via code?
If you go to Project->Properties->Publish->Install Mode and Settings->Options->Deployment in Visual Studio, there is a "Use ".deploy" file extension" option that you can untick to get rid of the .deploy extension being added to your published files:
Empty project folders are not included in the output. Either put a dummy content file in them or create the folder dynamically as needed during runtime.
# Nikola L.
You could try to use the following methods to add the files in your program to the installation package so that you can have the files you need in your installation path. If I misunderstood your question, please let me know.
The steps are as follows:
1.Right-click on the Setup project and select View -> File System
2.In the File System page, right-click the Application Folder (File System on target Machine) and select Add->Folder(named User's Application Data ) -> File…-> find the file under your project and select the file you need.
Such as:
3.Right-click the Setup project.
Install your setup package.
You can find the files you added in your installation path.
The result is like the picture below:
I have some library files needed for my application to work.
My application has a setup and deployment included.
I already know that in order for a library file to be added to the output directory of the application when installing, I just have to reference those libraries inside the .NET IDE before building... the only problem is that these libraries can't be referenced... So I need to be able to copy these libraries to the installation directory of my application... At the moment, I am copying these libraries manually...
Addendum
I also did try to add these library files as an Existing Item to my project and marked each library files' Copy to Output Directory to Copy if newer on their properties but still not getting the solution I want.
Update 1
Thanks for you help guys it helped me solve my problem, I managed to make the solutions you posted work except for one... #Matthew Watson's post.. I even managed to find a solution too so I wanted to share it with you also.
Heres what I did:
I opened the setup and deployment project in my application.
Under the Application Folder Tree, on it's right side, I right clicked..
then clicked Add..
then clicked File
and then browsed for the files I wanted to add to the installation directory
and click open.
But out of curiosity...I am still trying to make what #Matthew Watson posted work...
Update 2
I forgot to update this post yesterday, I already manage to make Matthew Watson's solution worked yesterday. Thank you again for all your help guys.
You can add files to your project and select their properties: "Build Action" as "Content" and "Copy to output directory" as "Copy Always" or Copy if Newer (the latter is preferable because otherwise the project rebuilds fully every time you build it).
Then those files will be copied to your output folder.
This is better than using a post build step because Visual Studio will know that the files are part of the project. (That affects things like ClickOnce applications which need to know what files to add to the clickonce data.)
You will also be more easily able to see which files are in the project because they will be listed with the source code files rather than hidden in a post-build step. And also Source Control can be used with them more easily.
Once you have added "Content" files to your project, you will be able to add them to a Visual Studio 2010 Setup and Deployment project as follows:
Go into your Setup project and add to your "Application Folder" output the Project Output called "Content Files". If you right-click the Content Files after adding them you can select "outputs" and see what it's going to copy.
Note that Setup and Deployment projects are NOT supported in Visual Studio 2012.
You can use Visual Studio Post Build Event - Copy to Relative Directory Location. Which are basically scripts that are executed on build of specified project.
So you can use it to copy binaries you need, before actually running your application.
I'm setting up a TFS 2012 build agent and have run into a small problem with unit tests that reference external files. (Yes, yes, this is bad...no arguments there! I still have to get a build running) The tests are using the MSTest (VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting) framework.
Currently, there is a Resources folder under the solution root, and all the tests (which are unfortunately at varying depths in subdirectories) load files with some level of relative paths (..\\..\\..\\Resources\\resource.txt).
TFS, as you know, copies all output to a bin folder that is at the same level as src, which has the required Resources folder. There is no way to copy this folder high up enough in the directory structure so the tests pass for the build agent.
I am hoping that either of these questions can give me a stop-gap solution to this problem:
Is there any environment variable (or something similar) that I could use to detect that the unit test is being run through a TFS build agent and change the path to the resource file in code accordingly?
Is there a simple way to tell TFS to output files into the bin folder with the same hierarchy as they would have normally been if built in Visual Studio? (The reason I say simple is because I've found some rather long build modifications that could probably handle this)
Option1: Yes, you can copy a folder and it's contents to the \bin\Debug folder:
Add a folder to your test project
Add your files in that folder and in Visual Studio set each file property "Copy to Output Directory" : "Copy Always"
Option 2: You can also put your file into a resource file
Option 3: or declare the file it in your test using the attribute:
[TestMethod]
[DeploymentItem("mytestdata.xml")]
I have a solution in Visual Studio Express that looks like this:
The LogicSchema class in C# that will parse a specified XML file at run-time. The following is in the main method of Program.cs:
LogicSchema ls = new LogicSchema(
XDocument.Load(
"schemas\\C#Schema.xml",
LoadOptions.PreserveWhitespace));
I created a folder in my solution called "schemas" to save the XML file and set the Build Action to Content and the "Copy to Output Directory" value to be Copy if newer.
My expectation is that if open the file in notepad, make a change, and save it, the updated version of the XML file will be copied to the ouput directory (in this case, bin\debug) when I press F5. However, the updated file is not copied to the output directory unless I select Rebuild. Regular Build does not work.
What do I need to change so that when I press F5, the file is copied to the output directory when it's been updated?
It seems to work also in Visual Studio 2008 Team System -
must be Expression edition specific, so cannot repro...
OK, my original guess was not true - it is about XML file being in the referenced library. Can repro it now.
I think the most natural way would be to embed the XML as resource and then read it with GetManifestResourceStream(). This way, the XML file would follow your dll as you reference it without copying it separately even if you reference the dll directly and not through project reference.
...or then you could use Pre-build event? (Project properties - Build Events):
copy $(ProjectDir)test.xml $(SolutiontDir)projectFolder\bin\debug\test.xml
I would think it will always run even if VS thinks no source files have changed. At least in full VS2008 this is the case - just tested.
I have a solution with many projects. There is actually a Core project and a few plugins. I changed OutputPath for all plugins so all binaries end up in the Core bin\debug folder. (this is necessary as the Core do not have a reference on plugins, hence it does not "include" plugins binaries when it is compiled.)
So basically my folder structure is as follow:
Solution
MySolution.sln
Plugin1\
Plugin2\
Core\bin\debug
Each plugin OutputPath is "..\Core\bin\debug". When I open the solution Visual Studio creates a folder "Core\bin\debug" in Solution's folder parent as if the relative path starts from .sln file. However when I build the solution the binaries are output to the correct path ("Solution\Core\bin\debug").
Core\bin\debug
It looks like a Visual Studio bug to me, but maybe I overlooked some option somewhere. Any ideas how to resolve this problem ?
PS: I know this not a critical issue as everything build and works fine, however I dislike the idea of meaningless folder hanging around
Rather than changing the output location of the plug-ins, what you could do is create a post-build script (Properties \ Build Events tab) for them that will copy the them to the Core folder. That would prevent the confusion with output folders.
This command line should do the trick for you:
copy "$(TargetPath)" "$(SolutionDir)Core\$(OutDir)"
If you need to copy .pdb and .config files as well, you can add more lines:
copy "$(TargetPath).pdb" "$(SolutionDir)Core\$(OutDir)"
copy "$(TargetPath).config" "$(SolutionDir)Core\$(OutDir)"
If you really want to do it with a single line, this should also work, though it's not as clean:
copy "$(TargetPath)*" "$(SolutionDir)Core\$(OutDir)"
If you're not using the same output path in both the main project and the add-ons, you'll need to replace $(OutDir) with a hard-coded value. If you have them set to target the typical "\bin\Debug" folder (or have just left the defaults in place), then you can get away with using the $(OutDir) value.
Instead of using "..\Core\bin\debug", use "$(SolutionDir)\Core\bin\debug".