"Entry Point Not Found" error when using the Text Templating Engine in the VS 2008 SDK

Question

I am using the Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplating.Engine class from the VS 2008 SDK along with the objects from the Microsoft.Practices.RecipeFramework.VisualStudio.Library.Templates namespace to automate the process of creating C# classes from T4 templates.

Here my code. It taken straight from the example on Oleg Sych's Blog...

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Drawing;
using System.IO;
using Microsoft.Practices.RecipeFramework.VisualStudio.Library.Templates;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplating; 

namespace PropertyDirectivePot
{
  class Program
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      // Prepare template parameters
      var arguments = new Dictionary<string, PropertyData>();
      arguments.Add(“MyProperty”,
        new PropertyData(Color.AntiqueWhite, typeof(Color))); 

      // Initialize GAX template host
      string currentDirectory = Directory.GetCurrentDirectory();
      TemplateHost host = new TemplateHost(currentDirectory, arguments);
      host.TemplateFile = Path.Combine(currentDirectory, “PropertyTest.tt”); 

      // Transform template
      string template = File.ReadAllText(host.TemplateFile);
      ITextTemplatingEngine engine = new Engine();
      string output = engine.ProcessTemplate(template, host); 

      // Save output
      string outputFile = Path.ChangeExtension(host.TemplateFile, “.txt”);
      File.WriteAllText(outputFile, output);
    }
  }
}

The Problem

I get a System.EntryPointNotFoundException at the point where the template is processed and the output code file should be returned...

string output = engine.ProcessTemplate(template, host);

This exception suggests that I have a component version mismatch somewhere, and googling has revealed that this problem has been experienced by other, but with much older versions of the components I am using. My versions are...

Visual Studio SP1 9.0.30729.1
Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplating 9.0.0.0
Microsoft.Practices.RecipeFramework.VisualStudio.Library 1.4.0.0

I have the latest versions of GAX, GAT and the VS2008 SDK (all downloaded and installed today).

Does anyone have any idea what is going on, or how I might investigate further?

I really want to avoid having to start using a tracer to follow the call stack if at all possible :(

Answer 1

Found the answer...

I was refernecing the wrong version of the Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplating assembly.

I had two version installed on my machine...

• 8.1.0.0
• 9.0.0.0

The particular version of Microsoft.Practices.RecipeFramework.VisualStudio.Library that I was using required the earlier of the two versions.