Protocol buffers in C# projects using protobuf-net - best practices for code generation

Question

I\'m trying to use protobuf in a C# project, using protobuf-net, and am wondering what is the best way to organise this into a Visual Studio project structure.

When manu

Answer 1

well, that gave me an idea (something about reinventing the wheel)...

• create simple Makefile.mak, something like

.SUFFIXES : .cs .proto

.proto.cs:
    protogen\protogen.exe -i:$? -o:$@ -t:protogen\csharp.xlst

(obviously, don't forget to replace paths to protogen and csharp.xlst). IMPORTANT - protogen\protogen.exe command starting from TAB character, not 8 spaces

• If you don't want to specify files needed to be build all the time, you might use something like

.SUFFIXES : .cs .proto

all: mycs1.cs myotherfile.cs

.proto.cs:
    protogen\protogen.exe -i:$? -o:$@ -t:protogen\csharp.xlst

• in pre-build step to add

cd $(ProjectDir) && "$(DevEnvDir)..\..\vc\bin\nmake" /NOLOGO -c -f Makefile.mak mycs1.cs myotherfile.cs

or, if you have nmake in your path, one can use

cd $(ProjectDir) && nmake /NOLOGO -c -f Makefile.mak mycs1.cs myotherfile.cs