Absolute path to source file in Visual Studio

Question

I have a source code file, raven_sqlite.cpp, which I use in different projects. I keep one copy of this file in a folder, C:\Users\James\Documents\code\ravenset, pointed to by the system environment variable $RAVENROOT. In this way I need only maintain one copy of the code, and all my projects can be sure to be using the same version.

Here is how it looks in the Visual Studio properties view of Solution Explorer:

Note how, although the editable property is titled relative path, the full path is the absolute path specified by the environment variable, not the path relative to the project directory.

This has worked perfectly for many months for several projects.

Suddenly this has stopped working for one project (the other projects are still working just fine).

For the failing project, it looks like this:

Not how the full path is now built by adding with the project directory and adding the environment variable, etc. The environment variable is not being expanded (or resolved or whatever you call that :-)

Why has Visual Studio 2008 suddenly stopped expanding the environment variable for this one project?

Answer 1

Well, I found a workaround. If I stop Visual Studio and then restart it, everything works again. I can live with that, I suppose.