Web Site -> Web Application conversion: Can I automate adding the references?

Question

In my company, we've been converting .net "Web Sites" to "Web Applications". I have become the go-to person for this task.

In order to accomplish this, I create a new project, copy all the files from the "Web Site" and include them in the project, and run the "Convert To Web Application" tool to create the "design" files. This is totally awesome, however, I still need to manually add library and service references to my new project to match the references in the "Web Site".

Can I automate this process as well?

CLARIFICATION: I think that this question could be generalized as: Can I copy references from one VS project to another?

CORRECTION to the above: Actually, it does not generalize this way because "Web Site" references are kept in the web.config file while "Web Application" references are kept in the project file.

Answer 1

Yes you can. The project file (.csproj, etc) is an xml file. If you open the project file in a text editor you will see a section named ItemGroup. There you will find your references.