CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#visual-studioreference
Ali Akbar Azizi
Ali Akbar Azizi

Reputation: 3506

Add reference to local folder

I'm adding my dll file to my reference and set Copy local to true

Everything is OK and after I build application, my dll added to output folder

Now my question is how do Ι change the local path?

For example:

my application path is C:\myproject, I want to put dll into C:\myproject\libs

How can I set dll path to {applicatonpath}\libs NOT {applicationpath} ?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 7223

Answers (3)

martin
martin

Reputation: 299

When you compile you project, visual studio will put everything that has been compiled and set to copy locally to the "output folder", which depends on your current compile configuration. If you are compiling in Debug mode then this folder will be:

c:\your_solution_path\your_project_path\bin\Debug

If you use Release mode, it will be:

c:\your_solution_path\your_project_path\bin\Release

However, sometimes we reference a lot of assemblies (DLLs if you will) and those assemblies have dependencies of their own. In order to make everything "point and click" for our convenience, we must tell visual studio how we would like it to act for a particular project build.

So, as TotPeRo said, you should go do project properties and use the functionality of Pre-build and Post-build events. As the name suggests, Pre-Build happens before the actual build, while Post-Build takes place immediately after it. Please refer these links for further information: link1 and link2.

Lets assume the following scenario:

  • You have one solution.
  • that solution holds 2 projects (let's call them Project A and Project B). Project A is the actual GUI. Project B is just a helper project, that compiles into a DLL.
  • Let's say, that project B is doing some heavy matrix calculations, so you also have to include some MatLab libraries. NOTE: only Project B uses these libraries.
  • Project A references project B so that you can use the calculated information from B and show it in gui in A.

In order to compile this, the compiler is smart enough to determine, that Project B should be compiled first. If everything checks, the project is compiled into ProjectB.dll. Then, the compiler proceeds to compile Project A. It check all the dependencies and finds out, that you have already compiled Project B (which is a dependency for Project A) and that it can continue. Everything is then copied to the output folder (bin/Debug or bin/release) and should be in working order.

However, during runtime, something goes wrong and the application crashes. You find out, that Project B does not have the appropriate library to work with (namely MatLab libraries). And then you conclude, that MatLab should be included in the bin/debug (or bin/release) folder at compile-time. Since the MatLab library is a dependency library for Project B but not for Project A, it does not get copied and hence the exception. You can mitigate this behavior with the aforementioned Pre and Post-Build events. You can tell the Visual Studio that you want it to manually copy MatLab.dll to the output folder when it is doing a compile. This comes super handy when you come into situations like these. Build events can also trigger a lot of other things so be sure to check it out. I'm using this a lot and it's a time saver at least.

Upvotes: 2

TotPeRo
TotPeRo

Reputation: 6791

in post-build event on visual studio go to properties in your project and add this:

copy "c:\pathtolibrary\bin\debug\namelibrary.dll" "$(SolutionDir)\bin\Debug\libs"

enter image description here

Upvotes: 1

Shahin Rahbar
Shahin Rahbar

Reputation: 306

in the Visual Studio you can go Project > [project name] Properties > Reference Path change the path/create folder or else you want First make folder lib new project source code then use relative address

Upvotes: 2

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