Packaging your app as a single .exe file
If you want your .NET Framework Console App, to be packaged into a single file, then I would take a look at the nuget package Costura.Fody. It will package up all the projects DLLs into a single .exe for you. I use it all the time.
All you need to do is add the nuget package to your project like this:
PM> Install-Package Fody
PM> Install-Package Costura.Fody
and out will pop a single .exe
Embedding Resource Files - Option #1
If you want to include files in your deployment, what I have done in the past is embed them in the exe themselves and then extract them when the app runs.
To do this, add the files to your project as normal:
Then right-click the file and select "properties" and set the build action to be an "embedded resource".
This will alow you extract the file later on, when the program is running. With this setup you could have any number of resource files setup in the app.
Then on startup of the app, you can extract the embedded resource to a file on disk using a function like this:
public static string GetEmbeddedResource(string resourceName)
{
string resourceContents = "";
try
{
string[] names = Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().GetManifestResourceNames();
string resource = "";
foreach (string str in names)
{
if (str.ToLower().Contains(resourceName.ToLower()) == true)
{
resource = str;
break;
}
}
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(resource) == false)
{
using (StreamReader sreader = new StreamReader(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream(resource), Encoding.Default))
{
resourceContents = sreader.ReadToEnd();
}
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw;
}
return resourceContents;
}
with the usage of the above function looking like this:
var resource = GetEmbeddedResource("SomeFile.txt");
and then you can write the file to anywhere you need it on disk.
Embedding Resource Files - Option #2
The other option would be to copy the embedded resource to the output folder but then that means you wont have a single .exe file if you are manually copying this from machine to machine.
Embedding Resource Files - Option #3
If you are using ClickOnce technology to deploy your app, which it looks like you are, then when you go to the publish tab, if you select the "Application Files"
you can then choose which files to include in the deployment as seen here.
