This question is about how to create dependencies in Visual Studio csproj files to different Debug and Release versions of DLL libraries. (I am under the impression that when working on a Release configuration of library54, it should depend on Release versions of libraries23, 24, and 25, not their Debug versions. I imagine that the different Debug/Release versions of libraries would be stored in different folders.
But Visual Studio only gives me one method for creating a single library dependency for a given library name (right click dependencies and browse to the DLL to reference). But I can't browse to separate Debug/Release versions using Visual Studio.
Context: I have more than 50 solutions that each create at least one library or (sometimes multiple) executable files and that have dependencies among the various libraries and executables. Currently, I use post-build events to copy DLLs and executables to a separate (and centralized) debug folder in the debug tree. Then I make all VStudio dependency references point to the DLLs in that debug folder.
An example post-build event script to copy build products to a single destination folder looks like this:
set bindir=%holding%\MyDebugBinaries
echo "Export folder is: %bindir%"
if not exist %bindir% mkdir %bindir%
copy "$(OutDir)$(TargetName).dll" %bindir%
copy "$(OutDir)$(TargetName).deps.json" %bindir%
This method works reasonably well as long as I only want to produce Debug versions of everything or Release versions of everything into that single destination folder so that other projects can reference the objects during the overall build. (Usually I only work on one or two solutions out of the 50 solutions, so they need to link to the libraries in the centralized storage folder.)
But there seems to be no easy way in Visual Studio to represent Debug and Release dependencies as references to objects in different Debug and Release folders. To work on any individual solution in Debug or Release mode, I need to build the whole world into the single destination folder in either Debug or Release mode.
This thread is pretty good, but it skirts around the issue I'm having. It talks about the value and use of separate Debug/Release output folders.
Why have separate Debug and Release folders in Visual Studio?. But I'm talking about something different, I think.
I imagine that MSBuild target elements are smart enough to contain/set/use different dependencies for their relative Debug/Release versions and to use different output folders as well, but is there a way to do all that through Visual Studio methods?
The only way I can think of doing it is to manually edit the VS csproj file to add in custom targets that contain ItemGroup/References like so:
<Target .. Configuration = Debug >
<ItemGroup>
<Reference Include="SomeLibrary">
<HintPath>..\..\DebugFolder\SomeLibrary.dll</Hintpath>
</Reference>
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
<Target .. Configuration = Release >
<ItemGroup>
<Reference Include="SomeLibrary">
<HintPath>..\..\ReleaseFolder\SomeLibrary.dll</Hintpath>
</Reference>
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
I imagine a similar set of Post-Build targets with Debug/Release conditions would do the copying of binaries into the proper centralized Debug/Release folder.
Am I on the right track? Is this kind of thing normally done with manual coding in the project files? Am I missing something obvious? Thank you.
currently I am working on myDLL.dll. But myDLL.dll needs to include another Dll: D:\their.dll. But their.dll depends on a couple of other Dlls (D:\other1.dll, D:\other2.dll).
I have included their.dll into my project (as project reference)
<Reference Include="theirDLL">
<HintPath>D:\their.dll</HintPath>
</Reference>
And thus, their.dll is used in all projects which use myDLL.dll.
But I don't know how to include the other dlls, so that they are copied in the same path as myDLL.dll and their.dll during compiling.
At the moment I use pre-build events to copy the other dlls into the projects which need myDll.dll (and therefore their.dll). But this is a pain.
Any suggestions?
Best regards,
HarryKane
Add each .dll file to your project and (assuming you are developing in Visual Studio) then under solution explorer -> properties of each .dll file, select copy local and set the value to true, then each necessary .dll will be copied to the bin folder when compiled.
I have a visual studio solution.
I have many projects in the solution.
There is one main project which acts as the start up and uses other projects.
There is one project say "ProjectX". Its reference is added to main project.
The ProjectX references another .NET dll (say abc.dll) that isn't part of the solution.
Now this abc.dll should be copied to bin/debug folder of main project, but it isn't getting copied there. Why is it not getting copied, any known reasons ?
I found that if ProjectX referenced the abc.dll but didn't directly use any of the types DEFINED in abc.dll, then abc.dll would NOT be copied to the main output folder. (It would be copied to the ProjectX output folder, to make it extra-confusing.)
So, if you're not explicitly using any of the types from abc.dll anywhere in ProjectX, then put a dummy declaration somewhere in one of the files in ProjectX.
AbcDll.AnyClass dummy006; // this will be enough to cause the DLL to be copied
You don't need to do this for every class -- just once will be enough to make the DLL copy and everything work as expected.
Addendum: Note that this may work for debug mode, but NOT for release. See #nvirth's answer for details.
Just a sidenote to Overlord Zurg's answer.
I've added the dummy reference this way, and it worked in Debug mode:
public class DummyClass
{
private static void Dummy()
{
var dummy = typeof(AbcDll.AnyClass);
}
}
But in Release mode, the dependent dll still did not get copied.
This worked however:
public class DummyClass
{
private static void Dummy()
{
Action<Type> noop = _ => {};
var dummy = typeof(AbcDll.AnyClass);
noop(dummy);
}
}
This infomation actually costed me hours to figure out, so I thought I share it.
Yes, you'll need to set Copy Local to true. However, I'm pretty sure you'll also need to reference that assembly from the main project and set Copy Local to true as well - it doesn't just get copied from a dependent assembly.
You can get to the Copy Local property by clicking on the assembly under References and pressing F4.
It looks slick when you make it an assembly attribute
[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Assembly)]
public class ForceAssemblyReference: Attribute
{
public ForceAssemblyReference(Type forcedType)
{
//not sure if these two lines are required since
//the type is passed to constructor as parameter,
//thus effectively being used
Action<Type> noop = _ => { };
noop(forcedType);
}
}
The usage will be:
[assembly: ForceAssemblyReference(typeof(AbcDll.AnyClass))]
Ran into this same issue. Background info: before building, I had added a new Project X to the solution. Project Y depended on Project X and Project A, B, C depended on Project Y.
Build errors were that Project A, B, C, Y, and X dlls could not be found.
Root cause was that newly created Project X targeted .NET 4.5 while the rest of the solution projects targeted .NET 4.5.1. Project X didn't build causing the rest of the Projects to not build either.
Make sure any newly added Projects target the same .NET version as the rest of the solution.
Not sure if this helps but for me, many times I reference a DLL (which automatically adds it to the bin folder of course). However that DLL might need additional DLLs (depending on what functions I'm using). I do NOT want to reference those in my Project because they just simply need to end up in the same folder as the DLL I am actually using.
I accomplish this in Visual Studio by "Adding an existing file". You should be able to add it anywhere except the Add_data folder. personally I just add it to the root.
Then change the properties of that file to ...
Build Action = None (having this set to something like Content actually copies the "root" version to the root, plus a copy in the Bin).
Copy to output folder = Copy if Newer (Basically puts it in the BIN folder only if it is missing, but doesn't do it after that)
When I publish.. my added DLL's only exists in the BIN folder and nowhere else in the Publish location (which is what I want).
You could also check to make sure the DLLs you're looking for aren't included in the GAC. I believe Visual Studio is being smart about not copying those files if it already exists in the GAC on the build machine.
I recently ran in this situation where I'd been testing an SSIS package that needed assemblies to exist in the GAC. I'd since forgotten that and was wondering why those DLLs weren't coming out during a build.
To check what's in the GAC (from a Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt):
gacutil -l
Or output to a file to make it easier to read:
gacutil -l > output.txt
notepad.exe output.txt
To remove an assembly:
gacutil -u MyProjectAssemblyName
I should also note, that once I removed the files from the GAC they were correctly output in the \bin directory after a build (Even for assemblies that were not directly referenced in the root project). This was on Visual Studio 2013 Update 5.
If you right Click the referenced assembly, you will see a property called Copy Local. If Copy Local is set to true, then the assembly should be included in the bin. However, there seams to be a problem with Visual studio, that sometimes it does not include the referenced dll in the bin folder... this is the workaround that worked for me:
In my case, it was the stupidest thing, caused by a default behavior of TFS/VS that I disagree with.
Since adding the dll as a reference to the main project did not work, I decided to add it as an "Existing Item", with Copy Local = Always. Even then the file was not there.
Turns out that, even though the file is present on the VS Solution and everything compiled both locally and on the server, VS/TFS did not add actually add the file to source control. It was not included on the "Pending Changes" at all. I had to manually go to the Source Control Explorer and explicitly click on the "Add items to folder" icon.
Stupid because I've been developing for 15 years in VS. I've run into this before, I just did not remember and somehow I missed it because everything still compiled because of the file being a regular reference, but the file that was added as Existing Item was not being copied because it did not exist on the source control server.
I hope this saves someone some time, since I lost 2 days of my life to this.
Issue:
Encountered with a similar issue for a NuGet package DLL (Newtonsoft.json.dll) where the build output doesn't include the referenced DLL. But the compilation goes thru fine.
Fix:
Go through your projects in a text editor and look for references with "Private" tags in them. Like True or False. “Private” is a synonym for “Copy Local.” Somewhere in the actions, MSBuild is taking to locate dependencies, it’s finding your dependency somewhere else and deciding not to copy it.
So, go through each .csproj/.vbproj file and remove the tags manually. Rebuild, and everything works in both Visual Studio and MSBuild. Once you’ve got that working, you can go back in and update the to where you think they need to be.
Reference:
https://www.paraesthesia.com/archive/2008/02/13/what-to-do-if-copy-local-works-in-vs-but.aspx/
Make sure that the dependent DLL used by you does not have target .NET Framework higher than the target .NET framework of your project's Application.
You can check this by selecting your project, then press ALT+ENTER, then select Application from left side and then select Target Framework of your project.
Suppose,
dependent DLL Target Framework = 4.0 and
Application DLL Target Framework = 3.5 then change this to 4.0
Thank you!
This is a slight tweak on nvirth's example
internal class DummyClass
{
private static void Dummy()
{
Noop(typeof(AbcDll.AnyClass));
}
private static void Noop(Type _) { }
}
I would do add it to Postbuild events to copy necessary libraries to the output directories. Something like XCopy pathtolibraries targetdirectory
You can find them on project properties -> Build Events.
TLDR; Visual Studio 2019 may simply need a restart.
I encountered this situation using projects based on Microsoft.NET.Sdk project.
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
Specifically:
Project1: targets .netstandard2.1
references Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console via Nuget
Project2: targets .netstandard2.1
references Project1 via a Project reference
Project2Tests: targets .netcoreapp3.1
references Project2 via a Project reference
At test execution, I received the error messaging indicating that Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console could not be found, and it was indeed not in the output directory.
I decided to work around the issue by adding Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console to Project2, only to discover that Visual Studio's Nuget Manager did not list Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console as installed in Project1, despite it's presence in the Project1.csproj file.
A simple shut down and restart of Visual Studio resolved the problem without the need to add an extra reference. Perhaps this will save someone 45 minutes of lost productivity :-)
You may set both the main project and ProjectX's build output path to the same folder, then you can get all the dlls you need in that folder.
NO NEED FOR DUMMY IN CODE
Just :
add a Reference to the Executeable Project
or/and ensure that the reference in the executeable project has "Copy Local" set to TRUE (which was my "fault") is seems that this "overwrote" the setting in the base referenced library-project...
Other than the common ones above, I had a multi-project solution to publish. Apparently some files target different frameworks.
So my solution: Properties > Specific Version (False)
Add the DLL as an existing item to one of the projects and it should be sorted
VS2019 V16.6.3
For me the problem was somehow the main .proj file ended up with an entry like this for the project whose DLL wasn't getting copied to the parent project bin folder:
<ProjectReference Include="Project B.csproj">
<Project>{blah blah}</Project>
<Name>Project B</Name>
<Private>True</Private>
</ProjectReference>
I manually deleted the line <Private>True</Private> and the DLL was then copied to the main project bin folder on every build of the main project.
If you go to the reference of the problem project in the references folder of the main project, click it and view properties there is a "Copy Local" setting. The private tag equates to this setting, but for me for some reason changing copy local had no effect on the private tag in the .proj file.
Annoyingly I didn't change the copy local value for the reference, no idea how it got set that way and another day wasted tracking down a stupid problem with VS.
Thanks to all the other answers that helped zone me in on the cause.
HTH
I had a similar issue in which a DLL I had included in the project as content and 'Copy always' set, wasn't being copied to the bin folder. I solved this by adding a dependentAssembly reference to the DLL in the app.config.
I would like to have a smooth and efficient installation of the solution, but what I "inherited" is very far from that, and the guy who programmed most of it has left the company.
At present I am trying to install it on a test-server, and not all the dll's land in the correct places after the installation.
Firstly, if I use log4net in a project, then I need the log4net.dll in the folder after the installation (I guess). How do I get the log4net.dll to be copied with the project dll?
Secondly, Project A expects Project C's dll to be in the GAC or so it seems when I debug in Visual Studio and check where the modules are loaded from.
I also see that this is entered in the post build event commandline of Project A:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\x64\GacUtil.exe" -i "$(TargetPath)"
copy "$(TargetPath)" "C:\Program Files\MySolution\bin"
So how do I get Project C's dll into the GAC by way of the installation? I get an error on the Test Server because it can't load C.dll.
UPDATE WITH MORE DETAIL
After the solution has been installed with Windows Installer, a few folders are created in the parent folder such as Apps, bin, Engines, Service etc.
In the Apps folder, I have A.exe, which is looking for C.dll. However, C.dll lands up in the bin folder. As mentioned above, during execution of A.exe, it actually loads the modules of C.dll from the GAC (and on my laptop, those files are in the GAC because of the post-build event command line specified in the properties of Project C, but not in the GAC of the Test Server to which I am trying to install this solution).
So yes, I assume I could run something like this:
gacutil -i C.dll
after the installation, but it doesn't seem right.
There are two parts to your question relating to the GAC, and ensuring DLLs are copied.
GAC
Check out this link (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dkkx7f79%28v=vs.110%29.aspx) from MSDN on how to install into the GAC. The key thing is it must be strongly named or it will fail.
DDLs
Depending on how you are referencing Log4Net, there are a few ways to do this.
If you can add a reference in your project, make sure the property CopyLocal is set to true
If you just have the file locally, you can add it to a sub folder of your project with a symbolic link (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/306234), and then set the CopyToOutputDirectory property.
Hopefully these help you along.
I found what I was looking for!
Select the Setup project, then go to the menu "View" -> Editor -> File System.
It seems you can specify where the dlls must go, and what should be copied to the GAC during installation.
I installed System.Data.SQLite Core (x86/x64) from NuGet. It built without warnings but threw System.DllNotFoundException regarding SQLite.Interop.dll. I rigged my projects to copy the SQLite.Interop.dll from under the NuGet package's directory to the output directory, and now it runs without the exception.
Why didn't the NuGet package configure my projects to put the appropriate interop dll in the output directory? It seems like it should be able to do that.
I'm new to interop and I inherited this codebase, which previously referenced System.Data.SQLite.dll directly by path. I switched to NuGet to get rid of warnings about a mismatch between the processor architecture of the project vs System.Data.SQLite. I'm trying to build all projects as AnyCPU.
Copy this to your project file:
<PropertyGroup>
<ContentSQLiteInteropFiles>true</ContentSQLiteInteropFiles>
<CopySQLiteInteropFiles>false</CopySQLiteInteropFiles>
<CleanSQLiteInteropFiles>false</CleanSQLiteInteropFiles>
<CollectSQLiteInteropFiles>false</CollectSQLiteInteropFiles>
</PropertyGroup>
Source: SQLite.Interop.dll files does not copy to project output path when required by referenced project
In my case, the problem was the fact that I was using SQLite inside a class library project that was then used by another WPF (gui type) project.
Solved the SQL.Interop.dll not getting copied to output directory, by using the following Post-Build command, inside Project Properties -> Build Events:
xcopy "$(SolutionDir)packages\System.Data.SQLite.Core.1.0.101.0\build\net451\x86\SQLite.Interop.dll" "$(OutputDir)" /y /f
/y overwrites
/f displays actual filenames being copied
I thought this was happening to, as I was copying the files from my output folder to another location when I deployed them. I missed the fact that the interop files WERE being copied, but they are copied to x64 and x86 folders within your output folder.
If you run msbuild in debug on the project, you can look for references to the CopySQLiteInteropFiles target to ensure that it is running.
With the System.Data.SQLite.Core NuGet package version 1.0.104, I had the same problem as #Eternal21 and #Patrick. That is, project A references SQLite and project B references A where SQlite.Interop.dll is not copied into the output directory of B.
I found a solution that solves the trouble in project A rather than B which is a more robust solution since it fixes the problem once for all future projects refering to A. The .targets file of the NuGet package contains the following section:
<ItemGroup Condition="'$(ContentSQLiteInteropFiles)' != '' And
'$(ContentSQLiteInteropFiles)' != 'false' And
'#(SQLiteInteropFiles)' != ''">
<Content Include="#(SQLiteInteropFiles)">
<Link>%(RecursiveDir)%(FileName)%(Extension)</Link>
<CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</Content>
</ItemGroup>
This section adds SQLite.Interop.dll as a reference that has to be copied to project A's output and also to the output of refering projects (like B). But the MSBuild property ContentSQLiteInteropFiles is undefined by default (I don't know why) disabling the reference by the first condition. To enable it, I added the following line to a PropertyGroup element of projects A's .csproj file:
<ContentSQLiteInteropFiles>true</ContentSQLiteInteropFiles>
Please note that this line must prececde the Import element for the .targets file of the NuGet package.
In my case the SQL.Interop.dll was not copied by Nuget in any way, manually put the right version of the dll in the x86 and x64 folder solved the issue.
If you've installed Sqlite from Nuget, you can find the SQL.Interop.dll in this folder (for .NET 4.0)
PROJECT_FOLDER\packages\System.Data.SQLite.Core.1.0.*.*\build\net40
In my case the myProject.csproj file did not have the System.Data.SQLite.Core.targets defined. I added the following line and both x64 and x86 versions of SQLite.Interop.dll are now copied for all build targets.
<Import Project="..\packages\System.Data.SQLite.Core.1.0.98.1\build\net45\System.Data.SQLite.Core.targets" Condition="Exists('..\packages\System.Data.SQLite.Core.1.0.98.1\build\net45\System.Data.SQLite.Core.targets')" />
I'm not sure what will happen when the NuGet package for System.Data.SQLite.Core gets updated and if the package path will need to be manually altered.
in my case using NuGet for installing SQLite and still I need to add manually SQliteinterop.dll as a Resource. Then I build muy proyect and when I publish it works fine. (Working with x86 configuration)
I added
<PropertyGroup>
<ContentSQLiteInteropFiles>false</ContentSQLiteInteropFiles>
<CopySQLiteInteropFiles>false</CopySQLiteInteropFiles>
<CleanSQLiteInteropFiles>false</CleanSQLiteInteropFiles>
<CollectSQLiteInteropFiles>false</CollectSQLiteInteropFiles>
</PropertyGroup>
In the csproj of the project that references the nuget package. This part needs to be above the 'Import' of the 'System.Data.SQLite.Core.targets'.
Then, added the following to the csproj-file, so that the x64-version of the 'SQLite.Interop.dll' is placed in the bin folder.
<ItemGroup>
<Content Include="..\packages\System.Data.SQLite.Core.1.0.111.0\build\net46\x64\SQLite.Interop.dll">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</Content>
</ItemGroup>
Although this statement needs to be changed when the nuget package is updated.
None of the answers above seemed to work for me, perhaps because I am on VS2015, but that struck me as a good reason to add my own solution to this problem.
My specific situation is the same as #Eternal21 - I have a WPF UI consuming a client library which is the one that has SQLite added to it via nuget. And, yes, the problem was that the Interop.dll was not copied to the startup application (i.e the WPF UI that does not have SQLite installed).
The solution of simply adding SQLite to the WPF project using nuget is a quick and easy fix if you are in a hurry.
My slightly heavy-handed solution uses XCOPY but does have the advantage of copying both the x86 and the x64 directories and also copes with Debug and Release builds. Its downside is that it contains hard-coded project names. I can see how you could use a macro to get rid of the first one but I couldn't easily see how to get rid of the second, so you would have to change it manually if the project name changed (but this is fairly rare).
My solution is to use these XCOPY commands in the post-build of the startup project:
xcopy $(SolutionDir)DALProject\bin\$(ConfigurationName)\x64\SQLite.Interop.dll $(SolutionDir)WPFProject\bin\$(ConfigurationName)\x64\*.* /C /F /S /E /Y
xcopy $(SolutionDir)DALProject\bin\$(ConfigurationName)\x86\SQLite.Interop.dll $(SolutionDir)WPFProject\bin\$(ConfigurationName)\x86\*.* /C /F /S /E /Y
/C - Continues copying even if error (maybe this is not needed).
/F - Displays full paths of files being copied (could be omitted to clean-up build output).
/S - Copies subdirectories (which was the only way I could get it to create the /x86 and /x64 folders).
/E - Copies directories and subdirectories (maybe duplicates /S).
/Y - Suppresses prompt if destination file already exists.
I set this to run only on successful build and it works a treat for me. Hope it helps someone.
I have a DLL project that uses the SQLite package from nuget but a test project for it would always raise the DLL not found exception.
The simplest solution I found was to add the SQLite nuget package to the test project too.