Question

I have (quite a bit of) static files that I need to deploy with my application that is built on top of a legacy .NET library. These include several XML and config files, and a read-only database in the 10’s of Megabytes.

Most forums I have seen indicate that the best way to accomplish this is to reference the needed files in a project, and set them to Content and “Copy to Output Directory”.

I have two issues/questions dealing with this:

1. Adding these files, and setting them to “Content” seems to not only copy the files over, but embed them into the .dll as well. In other words, I have 40 MB worth of files, and a 40MB dll (this project’s only goal is to import these files, there is no substantial code).
   How can I prevent this extremely large dll from being made?

2. Is there an alternative way to get files into the App bundle? I would love to use a custom build command, and although I can copy files into the target directory ${AppDirectory}, but this does not result in these files ending up in the app bundle. Is this approach possible?

Any help is appreciated in advance.

Answer 1

You need to include your files from the main .exe project. You do this by using MonoDevelop’s Build Action to Content on each file. They should be copied to the .app without being included inside an .dll (or the .exe).

An alternative (for development) is to use iTunes sharing to copy once your files to your device. This allows you much faster deployment times while developing.

Of course you can’t submit such build to the app store (unless the files are not required to make the application work, unlikely). What I do (for my nearly 80MB read-only database) is to use this hack (loading from /Documents) inside #if DEBUG. The release build load the files from the normal location.

I have not automated the process (still debugging the app 😉 but it should be possible to script this so modifying the project options (for each file) is not required when switching from Debug and Release builds.