Generate Solution File From List of CSProj

Question

I've got alot of projects and I don't have a master solution with everything in it. The reason I want one is for refactoring.

So I was wondering if anybody knew an automatic way to build a solution file. Manually adding all the projects just isn't feasible.

Answer 1

Create an empty solution, then drag & drop all your projects into it at once?

Answer 2

You can try this (the code below comes from this site, of all sites..)

But if it doesn't work and it would take too much time to debug, I would suggest going for the pain of adding them manually once. Just put some good music and go for it... :)

@oefe I don't think VS.NET allows you to D&D projects into solutions, I've tried that once.

Imports EnvDTE
Imports EnvDTE80
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Private Shared Sub DoStuff()

        Dim filePath As String = "c:\temp"

        Dim fileName As String = "bld_TestApp.sln"

        Dim fullName As String = Path.Combine(filePath, fileName)

        Dim objType As Type

        Dim objDTE As EnvDTE.DTE

        objType = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("VisualStudio.DTE.8.0")

        objDTE = DirectCast(System.Activator.CreateInstance(objType), EnvDTE.DTE)

        Console.WriteLine(objDTE.Name + ":" + objDTE.Version)


        objDTE.Solution.Create(filePath, fileName)

        objDTE.Solution.AddFromFile("C:\Common.vbproj")

        objDTE.Solution.SaveAs(fullName)


    End Sub

Answer 3

Check out nAnt, the .NET port of Ant. It has the ability to do stuff like this, or to build without it.

Answer 4

I've programmatically using text manipulation created solution files for .vcproj files (but cs/vb would work just the same). It isn't really hard to figure out how to do it if you open up a solution file in notepad or whatever.

Unfortunately I cannot provide the code as it is proprietary.

Answer 5

Vagif Abilov wrote a wonderful utility that will generate a solution file from project files. It is amazing if you are working for people who don't "believe" in solution files. ugh.

GenerateSolutionFile.exe

Usage: GenerateSolutionFile /p /s [/i includeFilter] [/e excludeFilter]

http://bloggingabout.net/blogs/vagif/archive/2009/08/04/utility-to-generate-visual-studio-solution-file-for-a-group-of-projects.aspx

Answer 6

And I have now updated my utility (mentioned above) to support creation of solution folders: http://bloggingabout.net/blogs/vagif/archive/2009/12/03/utility-to-generate-solution-files-can-now-create-solution-folders.aspx