WebReference and Source Control - c#

I have a C# application that uses several web services which were added to my project as web references. I want to know what files i should check into source control.
in my project there is a folder structure from my project directory that looks like this:
Project
Web References
WS
WS.wsdl
Reference.cs
Reference.map
...misc .datasource and .xsd files
Which of these files should i put in source control?
Thanks

Suggest keeping all those files under source control, but only for completeness for other developers using your project's source code, or having to perform a Checkout/Get Latest on any new machine (after your dev machine's hard drive dies, etc.).
Once Visual Studio builds the web reference, all those files are built and remain unchanged until you 'Refresh Web Reference'. If you modify them yourself, i.e. change a datatype, or remove an XML attribute (I've had to do that for some obscure runtime SOAP problem), then check those changes in as well.

If your nant script or visual studio solution or what have you rebuilds any particular files on each build, then don't check those in, as it'll just lead to confusion. Otherwise check it all in.

Related

Adding app.config (Application Configuration File) in Visual Studio Professional 2017

I can't get the Application Configuration File template to show up under my Add > New Item > Visual C#. I've run a repair. I've uninstalled and reinstalled. I've deleted and added Cache folders. I've run devenv.exe /InstallVSTemplates. Nothing is working.
If anyone can tell me specifically what installation elements I should be including, and specifically what type of Project I need to start that might help.
I want to create a simple .Net Web Form in .Net and C# and need to include an app.config file.
When you create a new project (depending on the type of project like a web application for example) it will automatically create a template app.config file.
Worst case just make a txt file in notepad and call it [Appname].config
Another way would be to go in the project properties, then the Settings tab. If there are no settings yet, a link should exist in the middle of the empty tab to create a default setting file. Add one Application or User setting and save. Among other things a config file will be created for you too.

Config file for publishing web service

I have a Visual Studio web service application with the following solution structure (using VS2013 Community):
- [Solution] S
- [Project] S_Service
- S.amsx
- [Project] S_Lib
- File1.cs
- File2.cs
- app.config
The S_Service project is a simple web service project, with just a single asmx file with one WebService method. The project contains a reference to the S_Lib project, a class library to do all the work in terms of the business logic (the request processing).
In S_Lib I have an app.config file in which I store things like directories and file names for stuff which is used by the various components in S_Lib. When I am developing, changes to that file are picked up by the code ok.
Here's the problem: When I publish the S_Service project, the publish directory doesn't contain my app.config - only S_Service.dll and S_Lib.dll. After reading some other posts on StackOverflow (can't seem to find them now), I tried setting the build action on app.config to Content and to Copy Always. Great, this gets the file across to the publish directory, so it looks ok. But, once I deploy the whole lot onto IIS, any changes to the app.config file do not get reflected when the service is run. In fact I can delete the file completely from the IIS directory and it runs just fine. It's as though S_Lib.dll contains a compiled version of the configuration settings. This is no use, as I want to modify the config depending on the machine it's deployed on.
What do I need to do so that app.config is actually used at runtime and that changes are read on the fly?
Just as you wrote, S_Lib.dll contains compiles settings from the time when you set them in VS settings designer. Therefore it is still working (more or less).
You have a web service so you need a web.config. Add one to S_Service project. Then merge app.config content to web.config. Every time you change some setting in S_Lib project you will have to merge changes to web.config as well.
Or you could add app.config to S_Service project as a link by name web.config (not sure if it is possible to create a link with different name). Then when you change settings in S_Lib project they will be referenced in S_Service project automatically.
After failing to find a simple Visual Studio-based solution to do what I want, I implemented a more customised solution. In the library project, I replaced the config lookup method:
internal static string GetConfig(string key) {
return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[key] as string;
}
with a new method that reads my own settings file (custom format), stored in the solution. It's not perfectly ideal as it means that each project in the solution has to have its own settings file, but it's simpler overall. If anyone is interested please leave a comment and I will elaborate on this solution.

.NET (Visual Studio) Share assets between projects

I'm working with Visual Studio. There I have a solution with several web-projects (.net MVC 4). All of these web-projects use the same javascript-libs. Currently I copied the library into each project, but this can't be the final solution. What is the best approach to share those library (assets in general) between all of the projects? Just link them? Or is it possible to create a project and reference it in all projects?
Update
"Link" the javascript files from another project is not a possible solution as I would have to link thousands of files (one of the libraries I am using is ExtJs) what makes it impossible to build a project without freezing visual studio...
Possible solution
Currently I have a (Web) MVC Project called "Web" and a (Class Library) Project called "ClientScript" which contains all the JavaScript files which are shared between several Web Projects. As linking all the needed JavaScript files is not a possible solution (because it's a matter of thousands of files what causes visual studio to freeze) I copy all the needed JavaScript files to the individual Projects using the Build Events in each Web Project (Project -> Properties -> Build Events -> Post-build).
My Post-build command line in the Web Project looks like this:
start xcopy "$(SolutionDir)ClientScript\Frontend\*" "$(SolutionDir)Web\Scripts" /r /s /i /y /D /E
Every time you build your Web Project all the changed Javascript files get copied from the ClientScript Project to your Web Project.
While developing the Javascripts I run a small "filewatcher" tool which automatically copies a file from the ClientScript Project to every Web Project when it changes. This way I don't have to build the Web Project every time when I make a change to one of the Javascripts.
Anyone that stumbles across this question here in the future should know that there are now Shared Projects in Visual Studio to solve this problem. Universal Windows projects use them by default and you can create your own by downloading and installing the VS extension here: https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/315c13a7-2787-4f57-bdf7-adae6ed54450
Note: At this time they can be picky about what type of project you try to add the shared reference. I created a JavaScript shared project to share js files between a Windows store js app and an MVC web app and it would not let me do that saying they had to be of the same language. (It supports C#, C++, or JavaScript).
Place the JS files in a single folder, likely above all others, and add them to the project but use the "Link" option. It's part of the drop down on the "OK" button in the "Add existing item..." dialog.
When you run every new ASP.NET MVC 4 project it's take a new port then other app have take.
I simply suggest you a simple thing.
run a project which contain all the pacakages. open them webmatrix and run them as localhost:80.
You need to set the port in settings section of your site in webmatrix. Now it will rechable at localhost now you can reference all the libraries from this packages.
Slightly older thread, but I have another way of doing a similar thing using Web Essentials, that handles the issue of not publishing correctly.
I have a shared folder outside of the projects that require the shared file, normally a 'common' project with other things in as well, but can be just a simple folder as suggested by Michael Perrenoud.
However instead of 'Add as Link' I have been creating a new bundle in the project that requires the shared js/css file, with the same name as the shared file, and then referencing that file in the shared folder using a relative reference location rather than the root based one it starts with.
To add a file from a shared folder in the root of the solution to the scripts folder use the following code in a new bundle file (*.bundle), changing the folder/file names as required.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<bundle xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://vswebessentials.com/schemas/v1/bundle.xsd">
<settings>
<minify>false</minify>
<runOnBuild>true</runOnBuild>
</settings>
<files>
<file>../../MySharedFolder/my-js-file.js</file>
</files>
</bundle>
Then every time you build it recreates the bundle with the latest version, this version is then also published as expected :)
You can even create a minified version if desired by changing 'minify' to true. Or better yet you can add them loads as a bundle too if you want, you have that flexibilty.
This is an older thread but due to complex business requirements these days applications are divided in to different modules or sub projects.Thus, brings us the need to share common resources like JavaScript files, themes and CSS style sheet files.
I personally feel that common files should be put in separate Asp .Net MVC 5 project which has following structure :ASP.NET MVC5 folder structure
Now the best part is you can separately manage the dependencies using Bower,NPM or Nuget package manager.
After you have organised all the files in this project host this project to your own CDN or may be on cloud. You can use Using CDN in Bundle Approach to get script or link references.
That will help you sharing common resources across all the projects.There us a short coming though if you have many developers on the team and if someone added incompatible version lib can affect all the apps.

For a Silverlight 4 Visual Studio solution, what needs to be in version control?

I have a Silverlight 4 app that I'm building with Visual Studio 2010. I'm using Mercurial/TortoiseHG to do version control. Which files do I need to check in? By default, it checks in all sorts of .dlls in /bin/debug and stuff. Do I really need those? Or can I just grab code and content files? Do I need to version something to keep track of project properties and references, or is that contained within the .csproj file itself?
You don't need to include stuff in /bin or /obj. This is true of all VS solutions in source control. These are recreated upon every rebuild. Also, for Silverlight specifically, you don't need to check in the XAP file that is generated in the ClientBin of your web app.
From MSDN (via this social.msdn thread):
You can add the following files to Visual Studio source control:
Solution files (*.sln).
Project files, for example, *.csproj, *.vbproj files.
Application configuration files, based on XML, used to control run-time behavior of a Visual Studio project.
Files that you cannot add to source control include the following:
Solution user option files (*.suo).
Project user option files, for example, *.csproj.user, *.vbproj.user files.
Web information files, for example, *.csproj.webinfo, *.vbproj.webinfo, that control the virtual root location of a Web project.
Build output files, for example, *.dll and *.exe files.
It doesn't say anything specific about Silverlight projects though.
Is Mercurial/TortoiseHG integrated into Visual Studio? i.e. can you check out/submit from within VS?
If so, if you right click on the project name and select "Add Solution to Source Control" it should add those parts of the project that it needs ignoring everything else.

SharedAssemblyInfo.cs

I am using a SharedAssemblyInfo file which seems to be a 'standard' technique:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jjameson/archive/2009/04/03/shared-assembly-info-in-visual-studio-projects.aspx
I put the SharedAssemblyInfo.cs file into my web application because with web site projects I cannnot 'add files as a link'.
But now I need to add a second web project to the solution and obviously the SharedAssemblyInfo file cannot be within both projects.
How do I get round this problem without having duplicate SharedAssemblyInfo files?
One way to solve this problem from within a web site as opposed to a web project is via your source control provider.
If you are using Visual Source Safe you can "share" the file to both projects (folders) and not branch. If you are using subversion 1.6 you can use a single file "externals" property. See this page for info.
In the case of Team Foundation Server, you can look at this codeplex article. I don't have any experience with TFS, but I think in the case of a SharedAssembly.cs the branch and merge solution would work fine.
This means you will have to check the file in in one location and check it out in the other location for the change to take effect. However, have the AssemblyInfo out of sync during the development process probably won't break anything.
Is it a web site or a a web project? With a web project the linked file should work fine... although personally I'd rather keep them separate and update them through my build script.

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