The difference between build and publish in VS?

Question

I am a little confused about the difference between build and publish in the visual studio.

What is the difference between building a program and publishing a progr

Answer 1

Build compiles the source code into a (hopefully) runnable application. Publish takes that runnable application and puts it somewhere for other people to run it. Your confusion may come from the fact that Publish will also build the application if it thinks it needs to (e.g. if there are source code changes).