I am for sure missing some important detail here. I just cannot make .NET's XPath work with Visual Studio project files.
Let's load an xml document:
var doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load("blah/blah.csproj");
Now execute my query:
var nodes = doc.SelectNodes("//ItemGroup");
Console.WriteLine(nodes.Count); // whoops, zero
Of course, there are nodes named ItemGroup in the file. Moreover, this query works:
var nodes = doc.SelectNodes("//*/@Include");
Console.WriteLine(nodes.Count); // found some
With other documents, XPath works just fine.
I am absolutely puzzled about that. Could anyone explain me what is going on?
You probably need to add a reference to the namespace http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003
.
I had a similar problem, I wrote about it here. Do something like this:
XmlDocument xdDoc = new XmlDocument();
xdDoc.Load("blah/blah.csproj");
XmlNamespaceManager xnManager =
new XmlNamespaceManager(xdDoc.NameTable);
xnManager.AddNamespace("tu",
"http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003");
XmlNode xnRoot = xdDoc.DocumentElement;
XmlNodeList xnlPages = xnRoot.SelectNodes("//tu:ItemGroup", xnManager);
Look at the root namespace; you'll have to include an xml-namespace manager and use queries like "//x:ItemGroup", where "x" is your designated alias for the root namespace. And pass the manager into the query. For example:
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load("my.csproj");
XmlNamespaceManager mgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(doc.NameTable);
mgr.AddNamespace("foo", doc.DocumentElement.NamespaceURI);
XmlNode firstCompile = doc.SelectSingleNode("//foo:Compile", mgr);
I posted a LINQ / Xml version over at:
http://granadacoder.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/how-to-find-references-in-a-c-project-file-csproj-using-linq-xml/
But here is the gist of it. It may not be 100% perfect......but it shows the idea.
I'm posting the code here, since I found this (original post) when searching for an answer. Then I got tired of searching and wrote my own.
string fileName = @"C:\MyFolder\MyProjectFile.csproj";
XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Load(fileName);
XNamespace ns = XNamespace.Get("http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003");
//References "By DLL (file)"
var list1 = from list in xDoc.Descendants(ns + "ItemGroup")
from item in list.Elements(ns + "Reference")
/* where item.Element(ns + "HintPath") != null */
select new
{
CsProjFileName = fileName,
ReferenceInclude = item.Attribute("Include").Value,
RefType = (item.Element(ns + "HintPath") == null) ? "CompiledDLLInGac" : "CompiledDLL",
HintPath = (item.Element(ns + "HintPath") == null) ? string.Empty : item.Element(ns + "HintPath").Value
};
foreach (var v in list1)
{
Console.WriteLine(v.ToString());
}
//References "By Project"
var list2 = from list in xDoc.Descendants(ns + "ItemGroup")
from item in list.Elements(ns + "ProjectReference")
where
item.Element(ns + "Project") != null
select new
{
CsProjFileName = fileName,
ReferenceInclude = item.Attribute("Include").Value,
RefType = "ProjectReference",
ProjectGuid = item.Element(ns + "Project").Value
};
foreach (var v in list2)
{
Console.WriteLine(v.ToString());
}