My problem is that I have a Visual Studio (2010) C# solution with multiple projects and trying to manage the library for each one is nightmare. Each one of those project contains some standard library references (all pre-built).
For example:
Class Lib Project 1: A.dll, B.dll, C.dll
Class Lib Project 2: A.dll, B.dll, D.dll
So in this case, I have A.dll and B.dll beign references from a particular share drive. However, each new build of A.dll and B.dll goes into a separate folder. So if I want to upgrade to the latest library builds of A.dll and B.dll, I have to go through and change references in both projects to the new location.
Now if it was just 2 projects, no big deal. But if it’s let’s say 10+, then it becomes problematic, time-consuming, and error prone. Because this is a company wide process, I can’t create like a directory link for a static location where latest library build would be copied to (and sometimes I don’t want to automatically upgrade).
Does anyone know of a way where I can somehow centralize library references across projects under the same solution (I don’t need it across solutions)?
I assume you are using source control? Add your references (binaries) to your solution and keep them stored locally, along with the source code.
By keeping everything together you can always go back to a particular version of the source and be able to build it, without having to worry about what binaries you were using at that time.
Also, this allows you to update the binaries once – then all the developers can just pull down the latest ones whenever they do a “get”.
Edit: If you do this you also can just keep one copy of the dll which can be referenced by multiple projects in your solution.