Dotnet build: How to copy content output from dependency to output folder?

Question

I have a two unit test projects, Tests.Common and Tests.Foobar. Tests.Foobar references Tests.Common as a dependency. Tests.Common includes content files that are used by both Tests.Common and Tests.Foobar. Those content files are copied to the output folder of Tests.Common when the project is built.

But I also want the content files to be copied to the output folder of Tests.Foobar when that project is built. It seems like that was working previously, but it stopped working after we moved to SDK-style projects and dotnet build (instead of Visual Studio build in TeamCity).

Do I have to use a custom build target or is there some .csproj setting I can use? It has to work with dotnet build and not only in Visual Studio, as that's what we use in TeamCity.

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 18 '22 at 13:17

Didn't find a better solution, so with some inspiration from Including content files in .csproj that are outside the project cone , I added this to Tests.Foobar.csproj:

<ItemGroup>
    <Content Include="..\Tests.Common\TestData\**\*.*">
        <Link>TestData\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)</Link>
        <CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </Content>
    <Content Include="..\Tests.Common\TestDataExpectedResults\**\*.*">
        <Link>TestDataExpectedResults\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)</Link>
        <CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </Content>
</ItemGroup>

It's not perfect, but it did the trick.

Dotnet build: How to copy content output from dependency to output folder?

1 Answers1