Question

I have a project that is for a piece of software. So I reference DLL libraries for that software in my project so I can code and make some nice plugins and extensions for the software via their API.

The problem is that the software has many kinds of versions: Enterprise, Lite, version 1.6, version 1.7, version 2.0, etc. If I want my project to work for all these different versions, I have to duplicate my project and re-point the DLL references to the respective software version’s DLL library (I am doing this now). This is really annoying because my code base is the same for all versions, so when I make any updates, I have to synchronize all my duplicated projects so I have a build for each software version.

Is there a way that I can have a single project, but before I build, pick which software version to build for? I think I am looking for an easy way to update the paths of the DLL references in my project. Any ideas or tips would be greatly appreciated.

(I can use Visual Studio 2008 or 2010 and .NET 3.5 or 4.0 if this helps)

Answer 1

I have very limited experience working with project files directly but I’m pretty sure you could add conditions to many of the different settings. In your case, you could add a condition to either a Reference or associated ItemGroup.

Then you could do something like:

<ItemGroup>
  <Reference Include="System" />
  <Reference Include="System.Core" />
  <Reference Include="System.Data.Linq" />
  <Reference Include="System.Xml.Linq" />
  <Reference Include="MyLibrary" Condition=" '$(ProjectVersion)'=='4' ">
    <HintPath>..\..\..\..\..\..\..\Libv4\MyLibrary.dll</HintPath>
  </Reference>
  <Reference Include="MyLibrary" Condition=" '$(ProjectVersion)'=='5' ">
    <HintPath>..\..\..\..\..\..\..\Libv5\MyLibrary.dll</HintPath>
  </Reference>
  ...
</ItemGroup>

The syntax may be wrong but the idea is there. I believe it’s doable this way.