CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#gitvisual-studio-2012
Jae Carr
Jae Carr

Reputation: 1225

Include Reference in project file structure

Sorry, a bit of a noobish question here...spent an hour on Google and in MSs help documents, my head appears to be in the wrong place, I can't figure this out.

I have a C# project set up in Visual Studio 2012 that has references to a few .dlls that I have on my own hard drive (NetOffice .dlls to be specific, for Excel Interop). I've been adding them by right clicking on my references folder, going to Add Reference and then going to Browse to find the files. At that point they are included and everything works as expected on my side.

The problem occurs when I share the project. I'm using Git to keep the project coordinated between myself and a couple team members. I'll run my commit and push it then have my teammate do his pull. Everything shows up on his computer correctly, but when we open up the project it tells me that the NetOffice .dlls are missing.

I'm guess that this is because the files are only linked locally on my computer, but I can't figure out, for the life of me, how to make the .dlls exist in the file structure so that they travel with the project when I push it.

We have a few NuGet packages we use as well, and they seem to work just fine after being transferred. I've also gone into the .dll properties for NetOffice and turned "Copy Local" to true, yet it's still not included.

All I want is to be able to link references and then send the whole thing (dlls included) to my teammate, what am I doing wrong? I figured I would want to simply include the .dlls in the project structure but... I'm just not understanding something. Any help please?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2271

Answers (3)

ben.snape
ben.snape

Reputation: 1535

Although it's not good practise to include binaries in your git repository, doing so will solve your problem.

The quick fix could be to create lib directories in sensible locations within your repository (I'm not a C# developer but Gama Felix's suggestion seems correct).

Then commit these folders and push to the server.

Upvotes: 1

Mohsen Heydari
Mohsen Heydari

Reputation: 7284

Lets assume your source control root folder is called SourceRoot
and your solution files are under a folder called JaySolutionFolder
I prefer:
Adding a new folder to your source control, under SourceRoot, called SharedDlls
Copy all external Dlls to this Folder.
Add this dll references form SharedDlls to your project.
Commit this folder
Now your teammates have to get JaySolutionFolder & SharedDlls to compile the sources.
Later this SharedDlls could be target directory of Build process (Using tools like TFS Bulid, NANT or else)
This will be a way to minimize team based development problems.
In release and software installation, you can use installers or software package builders like installshield or Visual Studio Setup Package or ... to solve external dlls problem
Hop this helps.

Upvotes: 1

Gama Felix
Gama Felix

Reputation: 135

1 Create a folder in the file system at the same level as the solution file.
2 Copy the external dll's to that folder.
3 Add a Solution Folder tho the solution.
4 Add each dll to the the solution folder using add existing item
5 Reference the Dll's in the solution

The steps 3 and 4 aren't really necessary, but they help to keep things organized.

Upvotes: 2

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