MSBuild doesn't pick up references of the referenced project

Question

Hello,

I bumped into a strange situation with MSBuild just now. There's a solution which has three projects: LibX, LibY and Exe. Exe references LibX. LibX in its turn references LibY, has some content files, and also references to a third-party library (several pre-built assemblies installed in both GAC and local lib folder). The third-party library is marked as "Copy Local" ("private") and appears in the output of the LibX project, as the LibY's output and LibX's content files do. Now, Exe project's output has LibX project output, content files of the LibX project, LibY project output (coming from LibX), but NO third-party library's assemblies.

Now I worked this around by referencing the third-party library directly in Exe project, but I don't feel this is a "right" solution.

Anyone had this problem before?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Yes, I've had that problem, too. Though I'd love to say otherwise, I believe you must include all transitive dependencies as references in your build file.

Answer 2

You can actually go into the Microsoft.CSharp.targets or Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets file (located in the framework directory, usually C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5) and modify the csc or vbc task parameters to include additional reference dependencies. In the file (VB targets, line 166; C# targets, line 164) change:\

References="@(ReferencePath)"

to

References="@(ReferencePath);@(ReferenceDependencyPaths)"

This might cause other issues depending on how complicated things are and it may play tricks with the Visual Studio inproc compiler, but it's the only way to do it in MSBuild that I've found.