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How to automatically include generated source files into a C# project in Visual Studio?


I have a situation where I need to generate a bunch of C# code files in a prebuild step of a project and include the generated files into the current project for compilation. Is there a way to do this cleanly without having to muck with the project file every time the prebuild step is run?

My solution should work for both IDE based build and a Team Build based on MSBuild. Since both are MSBuild based, I suspect there won't be much difference; but wanted to call it out.

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!


Solution

  • One way to go would be to use Custom Tool like Linq 2 SQL does on dbml file with the MSLinqToSQLGenerator Tool. But I don't think custom tool work with MSBuild.

    Developing a Visual Studio Custom Tool