ASP.NET precompile fails to merge a single user control

Question

I have rather large third party ASP.NET WebSite project that I precompile and merge using MSBuild and the Microsoft Web Deployment targets. I don't precompile the .aspx and .ascx files, only the codefiles.

During the precompilation phase, the user control is compiled into an assembly that is not merged into the final WebSite.dll assembly. The final output contains:

• WebSite.dll
• App_Web_selectsinglepath.ascx.73690ebc.dll

All other user controls were compiled into assemblies with names like App_Web_abcdefgh.dll and these assemblies were merged into WebSIte.dll, just this one control was not.

What could be the cause of this behavior?

Answer 1

User controls are compiled into separate assemblies because this allows you to treat your user controls as web controls. You can use ILMerge utility to merge multiple assemblies into one. Here is a good page explaining this.