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c#visual-studioproject-reference

Prevent Visual Studio from duplicating referenced dll

I'm working on a plugin system for my app (C#, WPF). My project structure is like this:

Solution 'App'
    Plugins (solution folder)
        Plugin1 project (dll)
        Plugin2 project (dll)
    MainApp project (WPF)
    PluginInterface project (dll)

I edited projects' properties to build them in a custom folder this way

Build
    Debug
        MainApp.exe
        PluginInterface.dll
        Plugins (folder)
            Plugin1.dll
            Plugin2.dll

As the plugins should implement Iplugin interface (in PluginInterface project), I added PluginInterface project to references for each plugin project. However, this causes Visual Studio to build a copy of PluginInterface.dll in Plugins folder while PluginInterface project's output path is just set to Build\Debug.

I also tried to reference to the PluginInterface.dll file in Build\Debug (not project) but the result is same (I didn't forget to delete all created files before build).

How should I prevent Visual Studio from duplicating PluginInterface.dll file?

Solution

  • You could always remove the file afterwards with an msbuild task;

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/msbuild/delete-task?view=vs-2019

    Or with a post-build script;

    del $(ProjectDir)\plugins\pluginInterface.dll