Include referenced project's .config file

Question

Rather than excluding a file from the referenced output of an assembly, I want to add one!

I have a console application project (BuildTest1) that references a second class library project (ClassLibrary1). The Visual Studio solution looks like this:

Solution layout

I have a class library project that has an app.config. I want this .config file copied to the referring project's output, just like the .dll and .pdb files are. The config file for the class library is copied to the class library output directory as 'ClassLibrary1.dll.config'

I've tried adding this to the .exe project's .csproj file but it doesn't seem to make any difference:

  <PropertyGroup>
    <AllowedReferenceRelatedFileExtensions>
        .pdb;
        .xml;
        .config
    </AllowedReferenceRelatedFileExtensions>
  </PropertyGroup>

David Gardiner David Gardiner · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-19T11:53:27

I was so close... I tracked this down to the MSBuild ResolveAssemblyReference task that is called from the ResolveAssemblyReferences target in Microsoft.Common.targets. This is what populates the ReferenceCopyLocalPaths item.

So looking at the pattern of files it was matching I discovered that the file extension .dll.config (rather than just .config) did the trick:

<PropertyGroup>
    <AllowedReferenceRelatedFileExtensions>
        .pdb;
        .xml;
        .dll.config
    </AllowedReferenceRelatedFileExtensions>
</PropertyGroup>

Include referenced project's .config file

1 Answers