Compiling and deploying assemblies that are used as references for other projects.

Question

Okay so here is my situation:

Project A is in solution A, lets call it's output a.dll.

Project B is in solution B, lets call it's output b.exe.

Project B references a.dll

Both solutions are under source code control in different repositories.

My question is: how can i assure that Project A's output gets redirected to project B's "External references" folder, overriding the previous version of a.dll, regardless of what the local developers path structure looks like, is there a way to do this? alternatively could solution A, invoke the build of solution B and then copy it's output locally?

Answer 1

To be brief, automating builds accross solutions without a 'common directory structure' is possible through the use of:

1. commandline parameters
2. environment variables

I would encourage you however to consider the "Convention over Configuration" mantra and think up a convention about the relative positions of solutions A and B.

Furthermore it's possible to build projects and solutions using the MSBuild task. The binaries can be copied to your "External references" folder using the Copy task.