❔ How can I prevent content files from ProjectReferences being copied on build?
I have a test project (
Tests.csproj) that contains an nlog.config file which needs to be copied to its output directory on build. Being a test project, it references another project (App.csproj) in my solution that also contains an nlog.config file. The nlog.config files have different content so they are not redundant. In both nlog.config files have CopyToOutputDirectory set to PreserveNewest.
When I build Tests.csproj and inspect the resulting msbuild.binlog file, I see double writes for Tests\bin\Release\nlog.config. I suspect/hope this is due to App.csproj's nlog.config being copied into Tests\bin\Release, and then Tests.csproj's nlog.config being copied and overwriting it.
With NuGet package references I can control this with <ExcludeAssets>contentfiles</ExcludeAssets>. Is there a similar directive I can use for project references? ExcludeAssets didn't work.
Also, I'd be interested in solutions to this problem for both SDK-style projects and legacy (pre-SDK) projects.4 Replies
You might try putting the CopyToOutputDirectory in the referenced project behind a variable that you explicitly unset in the other project (or a variable that when set changes the copy directive to not copy) ?
Unknown User•2y ago
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Eh, yeah, was hoping there was something not so... hacky. I think that approach might cross the line beyond which the solution is worse than the original problem. :\ It would be easier to migrate the test project to use NLog's programmatic configuration API and stop relying on a physical config file so I could delete it, for example, but that also felt too involved.
Thanks, I didn't know about
ErrorOnDuplicatePublishOutputFiles. Setting that to true would be useful if I could eliminate the existing cases!Was this issue resolved? If so, run
/close - otherwise I will mark this as stale and this post will be archived until there is new activity.