VS2010 How to include files in project, to copy them to build output directory automatically during build or publish

Question

Task is to form Visual Studio 2010 project so, that during any build or publish some foo.exe utility should be copied to output (bin) directory.

Early I have made PostBuildEvent task in .csproj (MSBuild-file):

<PropertyGroup>
  <PostBuildEvent>
    Copy "$(SolutionDir)Tools\foo.exe" "$(ProjectDir)$(OutDir)foo.exe"
  </PostBuildEvent>
</PropertyGroup>

But this is not universal. During publishing (Visual Studio 2010) foo.exe appears in bin directory, but is not copied to output publish directory. Maybe I do everything completely wrong and there is standard mechanism to include files in projects to be later, during build or publish, copied to bin?

Chortle

Answer 1

There is and it is not dependent on post build events.

Add the file to your project, then in the file properties select under "Copy to Output Directory" either "Copy Always" or "Copy if Newer".

See MSDN.

Airburst

Is there any mechanism to control output subdirectory? I have put foo.exe in solution to \Tools\Foo\foo.exe and during publish foo.exe is copied to bin\Tools\Foo\foo.exe. Third party code needs foo.exe to be placed directly to bin folder. I have already turned off Namespace Provider property for Tools and Foo directories. But this doesn't help. I would like not to place foo.exe to project root. But if there is no any other variants as I understand this would be the only solution? – Chortle

You can add a solution folder and add the file to it - I believe it will then be copied to the bin directory. – Airburst

No, unfortunately there is no ability to control on building/publishing for files, that are included to solution folder. I have included foo.exe to project root. Not very beautiful but it works :) thanks. – Chortle

VS2015 here. If you have your file placed outside of the MVC project, (maybe in another project as part of your solution), it won't get published with this. sedodream.com/… helped me fix this. Short version: Add to your Properties\PublishProfiles\(pubname).pubxml a new entry to <PropertyGroup><PipelineCollectFilesPhaseDependsOn>. (This will be only used for this publishing profile, not for building or for other publishing profiles!) – Sciamachy

In the solution explorer click on the project then Add>New Folder. Drag your file into that folder. Then Build>Clean Solution and Build>Rebuild Solution. The output now has a new folder with that file in it when I build. – Standfast

What if the folders we're trying to include have hundreds of files? – Nolanolan

@Nickdb93 - guess you would have to repeat this hundreds of times. It is a setting that is stored in the project file (not entirely sure on this), so you may be able to script such changes to the project file. – Airburst

@Airburst haha thank you, I think I'll just try to include 7z.exe and include a *.tar, then extract it on first run. – Nolanolan

@Chortle Still searching optimal solution for Is there any mechanism to control output subdirectory? – Sontich

Answer 2

I only have the need to push files during a build, so I just added a Post-build Event Command Line entry like this:

Copy /Y "$(SolutionDir)Third Party\SomeLibrary\*" "$(TargetDir)"

You can set this by right-clicking your Project in the Solution Explorer, then Properties > Build Events

Difficulty

If you use this approach, I would recommend the following modification: Copy /Y "$(SolutionDir)Third Party\SomeLibrary\*" "$(TargetDir)" – Stampede

If i use publish on my web site does it copy to the deploy directory? (so far i do not think this works when using publish) – Paderewski

@codehurn -- updated based on your suggestion. thanks! – Difficulty

VS doesn’t copy files after the change , explicit Build or Rebuild is required, which is annoying to remember. #4597008 – Godspeed

Answer 3

In Solution Explorer, please select files you want to copied to output directory and assign two properties: - Build action = Content - Copy to Output Directory = Copy Always

This will do the trick.

Unmask

This will only work if the file is referenced in a project, and not in the solution via the 'Solution Items' list in Solution Explorer. – Stampede

@Stampede There is a way to do this for Solution Items too - please see my answer – Joella

Answer 4

1. Add the file to your project.
2. Go to the Properties of that file.
3. Set "Build Action" to Embedded Resource.
4. Set "Copy to Output Directory" to Copy Always.

Centering

Is this only for .NET or is it also related to naitive ? – Haemophilic

@Haemophilic It's for Visual Studio. – Centering

Does it work while publishing the application i want to keep the abc.txt file while publishing – Uni

Looks as duplicate of #4597008 – Godspeed

Answer 5

In my case, setting Copy to Output Directory to Copy Always and Build did not do the trick, while Rebuild did.

Hope this helps someone!

Carcanet

VS doesn’t understand dependencies on files outside of project folder, so explicit Build or Rebuild is required. – Godspeed

Answer 6

There is another way that can copy items that are "outside" the Solution (which also makes it technically possible to copy Solution Items as well).

In Solution Explorer, right-click in your project and choose "Add... Existing Item". Locate the file in question (it can by any type, not just code), and next to the "Add" button, click the drop-down arrow and select "Add As Link".

In Solution Explorer, select the item that was just added to your project and change the Copy to Output Directory property to Copy if newer or Copy always, as appropriate.

Joella

Answer 7

Try adding a reference to the missing dll's from your service/web project directly. Adding the references to a different project didn't work for me.

I only had to do this when publishing my web app because it wasn't copying all the required dll's.

Breach

Answer 8

Just so my fellow neuronically impaired comrades might chance upon it here, I had assumed that, for web projects, if the linked file was an external .config file that the "output directory" would be the same directory that web.config lives in, i.e. your web project's root. In retrospect, it is entirely unsurprising that it copies the linked file into the root/bin folder.

So, if it's an appSettings include file, your web.config's open tag would be

<appSettings file=".\bin\includedAppSettingsFile.config">

Duh.

Belloc