Question

Projects are often broken down into folders, and those folders are typically expected to map to code namespaces. However, in many of my core projects I have classes that I have merged into existing namespaces – for example I have an MVC reference library that adds additional types into System.Web.Mvc, or System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations, for example.

In other projects, I might have a suite of interfaces and a suite of default implementations of those interfaces; so I might split the code files into two separate folders (e.g. ‘Objects’ and ‘Interfaces’) but I don’t want to have Objects and Interfaces sub namespaces.

Equally, I often write extension methods for types in other libraries – e.g. System.String, which I merge into the System namespace so they are already ‘there’ as soon as you reference the assembly.

So given a project structure like this (in response to the first answer, this project is intended to produce a single assembly with all the namespaces; and could be a dll that might be signed):

Our.Core.Library
|->System
|  |->StringExtensions.cs
|->System.Web.Mvc
|  |->AnotherModelBinder.cs
|->OurCoreClass.cs

In the above, I want new files added to the root to be in the namespace Our.Core.Library, but I want new files added to the System and System.Web.Mvc folders to be in System and System.Web.Mvc respectively. But VS will give them a default namespace of Our.Core.Library.System.

It’s a small gripe, but I’d like to be able to override the default namespace for a specific code folder so I can control it. Any ideas how to achieve this? I’ve tried an empty default namespace for the project, which might logically make it work for sub-folders, but obviously not for the root; however, the VS Properties page doesn’t accept an empty namespace.

Ideally it would be a solution that I can easily replicate across our entire dev team to enable other developers to be able to add code files whilst adhering to the namespace structure set out at the architect/planning stage.

Answer 1

Basically the only way I’m going to be able to do this is to write my own extension to Visual Studio. It might even require it’s own project or item wizard – if I can get anything working I’ll post it up here in the future.