Visual studio one project with several dlls as output?

Question

I\'m programming a project with plugin support. Since many of the plugins are relatively small (only one source-file/class) I would like to have them all in one project in

Answer 1

To expand upon Julien Hoarau's answer above, here is a solution that allows you to compile multiple DLL files from within a single project, and have those DLL files be compiled from multiple CS files. Just open your csproj file and add this before the tag:

  
  
  
    false
    false
    false
    false
    false       
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    false
    false
    false
  
  
  
    
    
    
    
  

  
  
  

This is my approach - it lets you keep everything organized at the bottom instead of spread out throughout the project file. Using

false

allows us to hide the files from the SolutionExplorer, and have a separate defined list of files instead of simply adding the plugin tag to the files we want. In your main solution, be sure to set the Build Action to "none" on all the files you are compiling in the plugin so there is no duplication in the main project file.

Some more reading about CSC:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/78f4aasd.aspx Command-line Building With csc.exe

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms379563(v=vs.80).aspx Working with the C# 2.0 Command Line Compiler

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/s5c8athz.aspx Csc Task

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7szfhaft.aspx MSBuild Conditions

I hope this is useful to someone.