Comments on: “Project Dependencies” of Visual Studio 2008 broken in MSBuild

By: Victor Sergienko

Victor Sergienko — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:58:49 +0000

Thanks Chuck for a good piece of knowledge.

I cannot remember for sure now, but it feels like it was a purely C# solution, and I was running it with /build. Well, anyway.

By: Chuck England

Chuck England — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:45:17 +0000

Prior to Visual Studio 2010, C++ projects were build using VCBuild, and not MSBuild. As a result, you would either need to use “DevEnv.exe /build” (which uses the same Solution Build Manager as the IDE) to build the projects, or create your own traversal type project.

And example of writing a traversal target may be found in Figure 7 of this article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd483291.aspx

By: Victor Sergienko

Victor Sergienko — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:18:00 +0000

Joe, I believe it’s the same as for ???? .NET projects.
Linking is not about build order, it’s about physical usage of one project functions in another.

By: Joe Lakey

Joe Lakey — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 18:14:44 +0000

I have inherited a project with both C# and C++ projects. I understand setting dependencies and references in and between C# projects. How should references/dependencies be set between C++ projects or from a C# to a C++ project or vice versa? There seem to be several places in the Properties of a C++ project where another project can be referenced or “linked.”

By: Victor Sergienko

Victor Sergienko — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:15:05 +0000

Chuck, thank you for explaining.
I don’t know why wasn’t I able to find it in VS. Sadly, I have no Visual Studio now and can’t check if it was there in 2005 version: I was sure it wasn’t the thing project reference did.

By: tim

tim — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:21:30 +0000

THANK YOU – you are a life saver

By: ChuckEng - MSFT

ChuckEng - MSFT — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 19:48:28 +0000

MSBuild actually only uses the build ordering when you build a solution from the command line, or when you build in the IDE. You can set this in the IDE with the menu option “Build Order…” in the Project menu.

However, what MSBuild creates and uses are what we refer to as P2P’s (or Project to Project references). These can be created in the IDE by right clicking the References node (C# application) and selecting “Add Reference…”. Go to the Projects tab, and choose the project that this project depends on. You can add multiple. This adds XML to the .csproj file that looks like:

{EF60F047-304C-4684-9278-E8DD8C7618F8}
Microsoft.Build.BatchBuild

This project reference allows MSBuild to make sure that the referenced project is built prior to building this project. This works on solutions or projects, in the IDE and on the command line.
Note that you can also get to the References dialog by choosing “Add Reference…” from the project menu with the appropriate project selected in solution explorer.

Chuck England
chuckeng@microsoft.com
Visual Studio Platform
Program Manager – MSBuild

By: Alexey

Alexey — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:31:36 +0000

I mean, chuvak, eto genialno, spasibo!

By: Alexey

Alexey — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:30:49 +0000

?????, ??? ?????????, ???????!

By: Victor Sergienko

Victor Sergienko — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:47:24 +0000

Doug,
This might be tricky. Check if you’re using right GUIDs in right order (in the line with “} = {“), and that you caught all necessary dependencies.
My MSBuild is of the same version.

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:34:46 +0000

Unfortunately, this does not seem to work with my MSBuild.
vs2008, sp1

By: Stephane

Stephane — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:41:09 +0000

Thanks for the post – it helped me out
- what a !@#$ mess !!