Referencing common binary in multiple projects

Question

I have a third party DLL which I need to reference in multiple c# projects in a solution.

It is presently referenced as follows.

 <Reference Include="Contoso.App, Version=4.0.5.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=xxxxxxxx, processorArchitecture=MSIL">
    <SpecificVersion>False</SpecificVersion>
   <HintPath>..\ThirdParty\Contoso\4.0.5.0\Contoso.App.dll</HintPath>
  </Reference>

I have around 40 projects in my solution which reference the Contoso.App.Dll

Whenever the DLL version changes a new folder is created as follows

..\ThirdParty\Contoso\5.0\

I have to go and update all my 40 projects as follows.

 <Reference Include="Contoso.App, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=xxxxxxxx, processorArchitecture=MSIL">
    <SpecificVersion>False</SpecificVersion>
   <HintPath>..\ThirdParty\Contoso\5.0\Contoso.App.dll</HintPath>
  </Reference>

Is there a better way to manage the version change of the DLL?

Can I create single variable in the solution and reuse it across all the projects?

Are you using it in all of the projects in your solution or is it only a subset? — axwr, Apr 12 '17 at 04:08
Actually not all the projects. I have around 70 projects in the solutions. 40 of them reference the DLL. — Praveen Reddy, Apr 12 '17 at 04:09
Why don't you use `\ThirdParty\Contoso\CurrentVersion\Contoso.App.dll` as path and copy dll version 5.0 to it. — TriV, Apr 12 '17 at 04:16
@TriV Your solution will not work as I also have to update version in the Reference node. See my latest Edit. — Praveen Reddy, Jun 26 '17 at 22:18

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 12 '17 at 07:07

Private NuGet repository is prefect, but requires too many changes. A simpler way is to create a common project and let other projects reference this common project.

common.props. It's better to use solution relative path instead of ...

<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <ItemGroup>
    <Reference Include="Contoso.App, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=xxxxxxxx, processorArchitecture=MSIL">
      <HintPath>..\ThirdParty\Contoso\5.0\Contoso.App.dll</HintPath>
    </Reference>
  </ItemGroup>
</Project>

Import it in other project.

<Import Project="<MySolutionPath>\common.props"/>

There may be build errors in VS after changes are made in common.props because the reference is updated instantly. Verify it via command line msbuild.exe first.

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

Setup a Private Nuget Repository that the rest of your team can access. See Scott's answer.

tl;dr

Open Visual Studios
Create a new Empty Web Project
Add the Nuget.Server Package
- Package manager console: install-package nuget.server
- Overwrite web.config: Yes
Open Web.config
Set appSettings
- packagesPath: where the nuget is going to sit
Init:

nuget init c:\source c:\localnuget
Push:

nuget push {package file} -s http://localhost:51217/nuget {apikey}

Alternate hosting

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 12 '17 at 04:36

Just to add flexibility to TriV's comment, you can define an environment variable (e.g. CONTOSO_VERSION) and use it in the pre-build event command to copy the DLL into your bin folder (or wherever you're referencing from) using $CONTOSO_VERSION. This way you can change the referenced DLL version back and forth via env variable. Make sure it's pre-build event for a project others depend on (or create a dummy project with others depending on it for a solution-wide pre-build event).

Referencing common binary in multiple projects

3 Answers3