.NET Core include folder in publish

Question

I have the following folder structure for my .NET Core 2.1 project:

How can I include folder AppData and all of its subfolders and files when I

Answer 1

There is simple and useful solution:

  <ItemGroup>
    <Content Include="AppData\**" CopyToPublishDirectory="PreserveNewest"/>
  </ItemGroup>

You can find more tricks here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/tools/project-json-to-csproj

Answer 2

None of the above solutions worked for me. So, I took the same approach taken in "React project template" and I added this code to my .csproj file:

  <Target Name="PublishFrontend" AfterTargets="ComputeFilesToPublish">
    <ItemGroup>
      <DistFiles Include="ClientApp\build\**" />
      <ResolvedFileToPublish Include="@(DistFiles->'%(FullPath)')" Exclude="@(ResolvedFileToPublish)">
        <RelativePath>%(DistFiles.Identity)</RelativePath>
        <CopyToPublishDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToPublishDirectory>
        <ExcludeFromSingleFile>true</ExcludeFromSingleFile>
      </ResolvedFileToPublish>
    </ItemGroup>
  </Target>

Answer 3

You can put a placeholder file in it (or use your existing files). Then add the file to the project and set the file properties: Copy To Output Directory: Copy if newer or Copy always.

Other way: add a post build step command, that creates the directory.

Answer 4

Adding this:

<ItemGroup> 
  <Content Include="AppData\**"> 
    <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory> 
  </Content> 
</ItemGroup>

to your .csproj file will copy AppData folder if it's not empty. For empty AppData folder you can use this workaround:

<Target Name="CreateAppDataFolder" AfterTargets="AfterPublish">
  <MakeDir Directories="$(PublishDir)AppData" Condition="!Exists('$(PublishDir)AppData')" /> 
</Target>

This will create AppData folder after publish if it won't be already included in output. Meaning this will create AppData folder only if it's empty while publishing.