I have a VS project with an IntermediateDirectory like this: “….\temp\$(SolutionName)\$(ProjectName)”.
I can read this value using a macro or add in, however, I would need the actual directory to manipulate files there. Right now, I manually replace the “$(SolutionName)” and “$(ProjectName)” with the respective values, which works fine but might become complicated when different macros or even user macros from property sheets are used.
So my question is:
Does the Visual Studio API have a built in function to expand macros like these? Or is there some other elegant solution?
There is an elegant solution! But I only know the one that applies to C++ projects.
Assuming you’re in a C# add-in:
// Get the main project from the first startup project
VCProject vcMainProject = (VCProject)(_applicationObject.Solution.SolutionBuild.StartupProjects as IVCCollection).Item(1);
Project mainProj = (Project)_vcMainProject .Object;
// Get the configuration we’ll be using
IVCCollection cfgs = (IVCCollection)_vcMainProject .Configurations;
VCConfiguration vcCfg = (VCConfiguration) cfgs.Item(mainProj.ConfigurationManager.ActiveConfiguration.ConfigurationName + “|” + mainProj.ConfigurationManager.ActiveConfiguration.PlatformName);
string finalString = vcCfg.Evaluate(“….\temp\$(SolutionName)\$(ProjectName)”);
You can also check out this page:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/czt44k0x%28VS.71%29.aspx
If you’re not using this for C++, there should be a similar interface for the Project, Configuration, and Solution classes provided for other languages (C# and VB).