CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#dllvisual-studio-2015
Pavel
Pavel

Reputation: 361

Automatically copy related DLLs without binary reference

Visual Studio 2015, C# Console project + C# Library projects:

Is there a way to achieve automatically copying related project binary output to an output dir of a particular "master" project without using Project reference (and Copy local = True)?

I want to be able to maintain the exe-s and dll-s loosely coupled without the actual binary reference, but can rely on the related dll-s are always copied to the right output dir (e.g. Debug/Release).

Example:

Upvotes: 0

Views: 919

Answers (2)

Michel de Becdelièvre
Michel de Becdelièvre

Reputation: 264

I have only verified this solution on VS2017, but based on the date of the referenced MSDn article, it should work with VS2015 : use ReferenceOutputAssembly is your csproj. Sadly, this is a property that can only be added via manual edit of the csproj.

<ProjectReference Include="..\..\Calfitec\PglLibPAC\PglOdpm\PglOdpm.csproj">
  <Project>{261de855-9e8f-45de-b57d-fd4c7deb5f1b}</Project>
  <Name>PglOdpm</Name>
  <ReferenceOutputAssembly>false</ReferenceOutputAssembly>
</ProjectReference>

See also: How to have a Project Reference without referencing the actual binary

This is the intended use of the feature:

Sometimes you want a project reference from project B to project A to indicate a build-time dependency, but you don’t actually want assembly B to reference assembly A (maybe because it’s a runtime-only dependency or loaded using reflection).

Upvotes: 1

user585968
user585968

Reputation:

TL; DR; The fact that Copy local even appears tells me that Console has a direct Add Reference dependency which kinda defeats the purpose of DI. Just let Visual Studio do it's thing via Copy Local=true.

If:

  1. Console has a Add Reference to Library
  2. Console expects Library to appear in the same folder as Console at runtime
  3. You don't have a large number of projects in your solution

...then you should just let Visual Studio do it's thing via Copy Local = true because Console has a direct dependency that must be solved and Dependency Injection (DI) doesn't even come into the equation. If you have a large number of projects, it can be shown to speed builds considerably if the copy happens once at the end but you didn't indicate this is your scenario.

If however:

  1. The aim is to use dependency injection
  2. Console does not have a Add Reference to Library
  3. classes in Library are to be created dynamically via DI
  4. Library is to be optionally deployed into a different folder than Console, perhaps a folder known as Plugins or DI

...then it's easier to have a Post Build step in one of your projects to copy dependant DLLs once to a single target folder. This is especially the case when developing plugins/DI for a large solution.

See <project>.Properties.Build Events.Post-build event command line

DI?

It sounds like you are wanting to use DI, but the appearing of Copy Local=true tells me that your program has a direct relationship to the library anyway. What's the point of DI? Your's is already strongly-coupled.

Upvotes: 1

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