I have a project ProjectA in which I am keeping utility classes. I want to use this project in multiple solutions so I do not have to copy files, link files and update files every time I make changes in classes of Project.
But there seems to be a problem: if I am referencing ProjectA in ProjectB, the compiled application of ProjectB can not run unless there's a compiled application from ProjectA next to it. So if the output of ProjectB is ProjectB.exe, ProjectB.exe gives an error upon execution if ProjectA.exe is not next to it. Why is that? I just want to use namespaces from ProjectA in ProjectB, I do not need ProjectA to depend on a compiled version of ProjectB.
Can anyone tell me how to reference ProjectA in ProjectB without needing the output of ProjectA to run the output of ProjectB?
You probably need a shared dll.
You have created utility classes in project A out because they are shared all across project A (Application A?), now you have introduced project B (Application B) and as you state it needs to get hold of the code from projectA.dll/exe.
So create a new project in your solution (Ab.Shared.dll maybe:-)) and move your utiilty classes into it. You can now reference that dll from both project A and project B.
Update: Just read about your comment about sucking code out.
The shared dll is the most common way of sharing the code about, but there are other ways. Theoretically you can simply "include" the same *.cs files in both projects and share them that way (use the drop down on the Add existing item dialog and select Add as link) . However in practice it becomes more awkward maintaining this scenario so most people use a shared dll.
Namespaces are not restricted to one assembly - you can use the same namespace across several assemblies if you wish, and one assembly can contain as many namespaces as you like.
If you are referencing a class/type from another assembly, then that assembly must be present (or locatable) when you run the original assembly. If all you are doing is coding then a simple project reference in your solution will do the trick. If you don't have the source code to Project A then you will need it in its compiled form - without it the CLR cannot inspect it and know what it contains.
In that case add the ProjectA compiled dll in your bin folder and add the reference to that dll from your other project. Do not add reference to your ProjectA project.
When you add reference to the project using Visual studio, Add Reference -> Projects, then it requires the project to be compiled and it copies the dll/exe to the other project bin folder.
Open your csproj file in text editor and insert xml:
<Reference Include="AssemblyName.dll">
<HintPath>$(EnvironmentVariable)\bin\AssemblyName.dll</HintPath>
<Private>False</Private>
</Reference>
If I understand correctly, you have code in ProjectA.exe that you want to use in ProjectB.exe, but at run time, you'd like to run ProjectB.exe without requiring the user to have a copy of ProjectA.exe.
This is not possible. When you use a type from another assembly, that assembly is loaded at run time. The type is not copied from ProjectA to ProjectB.
It sounds to me like you should extract the common utility classes into ProjectUtility.dll, and then reference that from both your ProjectA.exe and ProjectB.exe applications.
EDIT: ILMERGE might be the way to go. See Linking statically in C# for more information.
Related
I have three separate projects in my solution. Original and Secondary and Console-app. Secondary assembly references to the Original one and Console-app references to the Secondary. How can I use enumerations (types) in Original assembly from console-app without referencing to it?
Check the shared projects for visual studio.
It allows to have code for multiple projects, each projects compile the shared project as his own code, so you don't need to reference the common code.
I have two different projects in a Visual Studio solution. I want to use one of the two as the main part of my program and so have referenced the second project like:
I know that I can use all the public classes from the project x on my main project. My question is: can I have dlls on the second project, x, and use the methods of those dlls in my first project?
A good example will be if, every month, I have a new version of a dll and I do not want to change this dll on 10 different projects in the solution explorer, I want to add those dlls as references on the x project and then all other projects to use the same dll.
it is not possible by referencing both projects, you would create a circuilar reference.
anyway, it is possible by doing this over reflection. for example in project x you can enumerate all types (Assembly.GetTypes or so), also of the referenced project. then you can create an instance of a class Activator.CreateInstance and execute members.
If you have 2 projects:
x.dll
MyProgram.exe
Making MyProgram.exe reference x.dll is fine. However if you want x.dll to also reference MyProgram.exe, this creates a circular reference.
This is a dangerous road to go down because you can only build either project when you have a binary of the other. In other words you can't build both from source at the same time because the references are not yet compiled.
I would highly advise against this. Instead consider further abstracting your code by moving the code x.dll needs to get from MyProgram.exe to a separate y.dll. This way you would have 3 projects:
y.dll
x.dll (references y.dll)
MyProgram.exe (references x.dll and y.dll)
This way you can build all from source as all the dependencies are linear.
In C# .NET 4.0 I am creating a class library / DLL that I plan to reuse in many other projects. This class library will use several DLLs itself. For example, the class library I am creating may reference several DLLs like:
ServerConnectorLibrary references:
Lib1.dll
Lib2.dll
Lib3.dll
When I build this, I get ServerConnectorLibrary.dll as the output in the bin\Debug folder.
What I want now is to use this ServerConnectorLibrary.dll in other projects. However, when I add the DLL to my new projects and run I get the following error:
FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly "Lib1.dll".
If I add Lib1.dll to the bin\Debug folder of my new project, the problem is not solved.
You may be able to combine all of your dependencies into a single assembly. Here is an old example on CodeProject.
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/9364/Merging-NET-assemblies-using-ILMerge
There is also a StackOverflow thread here...
How do I merge multiple .net assemblies into a single assembly?
Otherwise, make sure the properties for each dependency is set to copy local and then include the dependencies along with your library. These are DLLs, so they are dynamically linked at run-time, unlike older C++ and C libraries that might be statically linked.
Wrt. the proposed dupe: Since this here queston suggests the opposite of the linked question, I'd rather like to think it is not a dupe.
First, I did read What is the best practice for “Copy Local” and with project references? (also this) and I'll have to try this out anyway, but getting general feedback on this seems necessary as the docs on this stuff are horrible and I'm only on VS2010 and maybe they changed something in newer versions that'll be nice to know.
Second, I'm only interested in project references for this question as I've read that assemblies from the GAC are handled differently and the GAC is irrelevant for my problem.
Third, after reading the suggested dupe, but more so the nice answer here by #Albireo, it would also appear that it is important to differentiate file dependencies, where the dependency references a dll assembly file and project dependencies (i.e. what I'm asking about), where the dependency references a project and implicitly the output file of that project.
Anyway, here's the situation, somewhat peculiar I think, but still:
2 C# executable projects
n C# dll assembly projects
The 2 executables have different output directories as they will be deployed separately and that way they're also separate on the developer machine
The 2 executables have dependencies on some of the DLL assemblies (which may depend on each other)
There are three output directories:
/x1 for executable 1 project
/x2 for executable 2 project
/lib for all the dll assemblies
The DLL assemblies all have Copy Localset to false for their project references, as they all build to the same output directory.
The 2 executable projects have set Copy Local to true for all the DLL assembly project references they reference directly, so that the DLLs will be copied into /x1 /x2 respectively.
The question now is wrt. to DLLs that are not directly referenced by an executable project, but only transitively through a referenced assembly: Will assemblies, that are only referenced transitively through another assembly, be copied into the output folder of the executable, when "Copy Local" is set to true on the first assembly?
Example:
x1.csproj (e.g.Output = x1/one.exe)
Reference: dlA.csproj ( e.g. Output = lib/a.dll) with Copy Local = *true*
(no direct reference on b.dll)
dlA.csproj ( e.g. Output = lib/a.dll)
Reference: dlB.csproj ( e.g. Output = lib/b.dll) with Copy Local = **false**
(no direct reference on c.dll)
dlC.csproj ( e.g. Output = lib/c.dll)
(no further relevant references)
Thus, we have a logical dependency of one.exe -> a.dll -> b.dll -> c.dll, where only a.dll with obviously be copied to the output directory of one.exe. Will the other two dlls also be copied to the output directory? Is this documented somewhere?
And, yes, I tried it. And, yes, it seems to work, but I haven't poked it hard enough yet and anyway there maybe something more to it that I may have missed. (And also there's the question wrt. any official docs.)
it would also appear that it is important to differentiate file dependencies, where the dependency references a dll assembly file and project dependencies (i.e. what I'm asking about), where the dependency references a project and implicitly the output file of that project.
Not really, no.
MSBuild doesn't really care if the reference points to another project in the solution or to a DLL.
If ProjectA depends on ProjectB to build ProjectA ProjectB must be already built (and up-to-date), MSBuild will then pull its DLL (not its C# code) and link it to ProjectA.
Adding a project reference instead of a DLL is "syntactic sugar" for your convenience: this way MSBuild knows it must pick the output of the referenced project, whatever the output is.
Otherwise, you'll have to manually pre-build the dependency, find its DLL and link it to the project, repeating the process whenever you switch build configuration, move or rename things. Not really practical.
Will the other two dlls also be copied to the output directory?
If any kind of element from a dependency is used directly from the project where the assembly is referenced, that reference will be copied.
An example could be this solution layout:
MySolution
MySolution.ConsoleApplication
MySolution.FirstDependency
MySolution.SecondDependency
MySolution.ThirdDependency
MySolution.FourthDependency
With this dependency chain:
MySolution.ConsoleApplication
MySolution.FirstDependency
MySolution.SecondDependency
MySolution.ThirdDependency
MySolution.FourthDependency
If you build this solution you'll notice that in MySolution.ConsoleApplication output directory there will be the DLLs for MySolution.FirstDependency, MySolution.SecondDependency and MySolution.ThirdDependency but no DLL for MySolution.FourthDependency.
Why is it so? When MSBuild builds MySolution.SecondDependency it notices that there's a dependency declared to MySolution.FourthDependency, but since it can't find any usage of any kind of element from MySolution.FourthDependency in MySolution.SecondDependency code it decides to perform some "optimization" and omits MySolution.FourthDependency assembly from the output.
This same issue bit me in the past when I added through NuGet AutoMapper to a "deep dependency": adding AutoMapper adds two assembly references, AutoMapper and AutoMapper.Net4, where the second assembly is loaded by the first through reflection when it needs to perform certain kind of action on the new collection objects introduced by the .NET Framework 4. Since the second assembly is loaded through reflection MSBuild thinks it's unused and doesn't bother to copy it around.
So, yes, they will be copied as long as you're using them directly and not through reflection.
Is this documented somewhere?
This behavior seems to be a "feature" of MSBuild, I managed to find a blog post by some folks from Microsoft back when I experienced this issue, but I can't find it again at the moment.
It is very straight forward, doesn't have anything to do with Copy Local. MSBuild looks in the metadata of an assembly to see what the dependencies are for an assembly. So can you, run ildasm.exe on the assembly and double-click the Manifest. Be sure to try this to get insight. You'll see the .assembly directives. Inserted by the compiler when it built the assembly, only the referenced assemblies you actually used in your code will be listed.
If MSBuild can find such an assembly in the same directory then it will automatically copy it. If not then it will silently skip the copy.
From this, you can deduce the failure modes. It cannot copy unmanaged DLLs, they do not appear in the metadata. It cannot copy assemblies that you have an indirect dependency on through Assembly.Load/From(), they don't appear in the metadata either. It cannot copy assemblies that haven't been built yet, a build order problem. And it cannot copy assemblies whose Copy Local property you set to False. Which is normally only a valid choice if the assembly is present in the GAC, no copy required.
For such cases you need to help, XCOPY in a post-build event gets the job done.
I have a class library project, lets call it CoreLib.
CoreLib has two references to 3rd party DLL files 1.dll and 2.dll
Because I love reusability so much, I want to be able to use CoreLib in as many places as possible/needed.
So if I had a project called BigProjectA and another project called BigProjectB and they needed to leverage the functionality provided by CoreLib, all I would have to do is add a reference to CoreLib in those projects (BigProjectA and BigProjectB).
That is fine, except when I go to copy over my output folder (bin directory) to another person's computer, I can't guarantee that they have 1.dll and 2.dll on their machines.
For that, I just set Copy Local to True for 1.dll and 2.dll references in the CoreLib project.
When building the CoreLib project I can see 1.dll, 2.dll, and CoreLib.dll files. That is PERFECT!
But in the projects referencing CoreLib, only CoreLib.dll is copied over, not 1.dll and 2.dll.
Am I missing something? Copy Local set to True, but only copies for the CoreLib project. So even though they are in the same solution, and I'm adding CoreLib as a project reference to the other projects, I still dont see 1.dll and 2.dll copying out to the other bin/Debug, bin/Release folders of the other projects (BigProjectA and BigProjectB).
Is there an easy solution?
The easy solution is to either:
reference 1.DLL and 2.DLL in projects which have a binary reference to CoreData.DLL
Add CoreData as a project reference to BigProjectA and BigProjectB instead of as a binary reference
In the first scenario, CoreData's dependencies are not automatically output by the compiler. If the CoreData project is added to the solution, its dependencies will be output. Hence, to use CoreData as a binary reference, you must also reference its dependencies.
There is nothing wrong. In projects BigProjectA and BigProjectB you have a references to only CoreLib, so they "care" about coping only it, cause they have no any clue about it's dependencies. What you can do to resolve these kind of issue, is to add for example PostBuildVEent in your BigProject.. to copy also CoreLib dependencies.
Or add reference to CoreLib project, if you can.
Another solution, is to consider DI like a technique to avoid strong coupling of references. So, if in BigProjectA or B you don't care about functionality provided by 3rd party libraries in CoreLib, for you should be enough to just copy CoreLib.
Good answers guys....but I actually just ended up using ILMerge. Seemed safer/less annoying.
Thank you though