Adding Existing Files To Project Externally Without Using VISUAL STUDIO 2008

Question

Hi,

My issue is copying *.cs files to my project using my own code generator program (like hibernate) So when my code generator program creates new .cs class I want it to be copied to project path and see it via VS2008 solution explorer.

(Note: Normally you can copy files to project folder but VS2008 doesn't see it since you didn't use VS2008 interface)

Thanks for your brilliant answers.

Answer 1

To add files to the project, you'll have to parse and modify the C# project (.csproj) file. You need to add tags for:

<ItemGroup>
  <Content Include="MyNewFile.cs">
    <SubType>Code</SubType>
  </Content>
</ItemGroup>

See your existing .csproj file for more examples of files you can add.

Answer 2

If you bust open the .vcproj file in notepad, you'll see something like this:

<Files>
 <Filter
  Name="Source Files"
  Filter="cpp;c;cxx;def;odl;idl;hpj;bat;asm;asmx"
  UniqueIdentifier="{4FC737F1-C7A5-4376-A066-2A32D752A2FF}"
  >
  <File
   RelativePath=".\foo.cpp"
   >
  </File>

You need to use your favorite XML parsing API to add more elements.

EDIT:

For a .csproj, add more elements like this:

<Compile Include="foo.cs" />