build automation - MSBuild doesn't pick up references of the referenced project

Question

I bumped into a strange situation with MSBuild just now. There's a solution which has three projects: LibX, LibY and Exe. Exe references LibX. LibX in its turn references LibY, has some content files, and also references to a third-party library (several pre-built assemblies installed in both GAC and local lib folder). The third-party library is marked as "Copy Local" ("private") and appears in the output of the LibX project, as the LibY's output and LibX's content files do. Now, Exe project's output has LibX project output, content files of the LibX project, LibY project output (coming from LibX), but NO third-party library's assemblies.

Now I worked this around by referencing the third-party library directly in Exe project, but I don't feel this is a "right" solution.

Anyone had this problem before?

Answer 1

There is a difference in behavior when building with MSBuild (i.e. command line, TFS Build and other tools) compared to building with Visual Studio. The secondary references are not included in the references variable sent into MSBuild compile tasks.

There are several extension points provided by MSBuild to change how references are to be resolved. I have successfully used AfterResolveReference to fix this issue for some of my projects - I have posted more info about the background on my blog.

The workaround is to add the following code into you vbproj or csproj files

  <Target Name="AfterResolveReferences">
    <!-- Redefine referencepath to add dependencyies-->
    <ItemGroup>
     <ReferencePath Include="@(ReferenceDependencyPaths)">
     </ReferencePath>
    </ItemGroup> 
  </Target>

Microsoft has stated that this is a won't fix on Connect