How do you share code between projects/solutions i

Question

I have two solutions which have some common code, so I'd like to extract it out and share it between them. Furthermore, I'd like to be able to release that library independently because it might be useful to others.

• What's the best way to do it with Visual Studio 2008?
• Is a project present in more than one solution?
• Do I have a separate solution for the separate piece of code?
• Can a solution depend on another one?

Answer 1

As of VisualStudio 2015, if you keep all your code in one solution, you can share code by adding a shared project. Then add a reference to this shared project for each project you want to use the code in, as well as the proper using directives.

Answer 2

If you're attempting to share code between two different project types (I.e.: desktop project and a mobile project), you may look into the shared solutions folder. I have to do that for my current project as the mobile and desktop projects both require identical classes that are only in 1 file. If you go this route, any of the projects that have the file linked can make changes to it and all of the projects will be rebuilt against those changes.

Answer 3

There is a very good case for using "adding existing file links" when reusing code across projects, and that is when you need to reference and support different versions of dependent libraries.

Making multiple assemblies with references to different external assemblies isn't easy to do otherwise without duplicating your code, or utilizing tricks with source code control.

I believe that it's easiest to maintain one project for development and unit test, then to create 'build' projects using existing file links when you need to create the assemblies which reference different versions of those external assemblies.

Answer 4

You could include the same project in more than one solution, but you're guaranteed to run into problems sometime down the road (relative paths can become invalid when you move directories around for example)

After years of struggling with this, I finally came up with a workable solution, but it requires you to use Subversion for source control (which is not a bad thing)

At the directory level of your solution, add a svn:externals property pointing to the projects you want to include in your solution. Subversion will pull the project from the repository and store it in a subfolder of your solution file. Your solution file can simply use relative paths to refer to your project.

If I find some more time, I'll explain this in detail.

Answer 5

One simpler way to include a class file of one project in another projects is by Adding the project in existing solution and then Adding the DLL reference of the new project in the existing project. Finally, you can use the methods of the added class by decalring using directive at the top of the any class.

Answer 6

File > Add > Existing Project... will let you add projects to your current solution. Just adding this since none of the above posts point that out. This lets you include the same project in multiple solutions.