HintPath vs ReferencePath in Visual Studio

Question

What exactly is the difference between the HintPath in a  csproj file and the ReferencePath in a  csproj user file  We re trying to commit to a convention where dependency DLLs are in a  releases  svn repo and all projects point to a particular release  Since different developers have different folder structures  relative references won t work  so we came up with a scheme to use an environment variable pointing to the particular developer s releases folder to create an absolute reference  So after a reference is added  we manually edit the project file to change the reference to an absolute path using the environment variable   I ve noticed that this can be done with both the HintPath and the ReferencePath  but the only difference I could find between them is that HintPath is resolved at build-time and ReferencePath when the project is loaded into the IDE  I m not really sure what the ramifications of that are though  I have noticed that VS sometimes rewrites the  csproj user and I have to rewrite the ReferencePath  but I m not sure what triggers that   I ve heard that it s best not to check in the  csproj user file since it s user-specific  so I d like to aim for that  but I ve also heard that the HintPath-specified DLL isn t  guaranteed  to be loaded if the same DLL is e g  located in the project s output directory  Any thoughts on this

User · Accepted Answer

According to this MSDN blog  https   blogs msdn microsoft com manishagarwal 2005 09 28 resolving-file-references-in-team-build-part-2   There is a search order for assemblies when building  The search order is as follows    Files from the current project     indicated by   CandidateAssemblyFiles     ReferencePath  property that comes from  user targets file    HintPath  metadata indicated by reference item  Target framework directory  Directories found in registry that uses AssemblyFoldersEx Registration  Registered assembly folders  indicated by   AssemblyFolders     OutputPath  or   OutDir  GAC   So  if the desired assembly is found by HintPath  but an alternate assembly can be found using ReferencePath  it will prefer the ReferencePath d assembly to the HintPath d one

User · Answer

My own experience has been that it s best to stick to one of two kinds of assembly references      A  local  assembly in the current build directory   An assembly in the GAC     I ve found  much like you ve described  other methods to either be too easily broken or have annoying maintenance requirements     Any assembly I don t want to GAC  has to live in the execution directory   Any assembly that isn t or can t be in the execution directory I GAC  managed by automatic build events    This hasn t given me any problems so far   While I m sure there s a situation where it won t work  the usual answer to any problem has been  oh  just GAC it     8 D  Hope that helps

User · Answer

Look in the file Microsoft Common targets  The answer to the question is in the file Microsoft Common targets for your target framework version   For  Net Framework version 4 0  and 4 5    the AssemblySearchPaths-element is defined like this        lt  --     The SearchPaths property is set to find assemblies in the following order            1  Files from current project - indicated by  CandidateAssemblyFiles           2    ReferencePath  - the reference path property  which comes from the  USER file           3  The hintpath from the referenced item itself  indicated by  HintPathFromItem            4  The directory of MSBuild s  target  runtime from GetFrameworkPath              The  target  runtime folder is the folder of the runtime that MSBuild is a part of           5  Registered assembly folders  indicated by  Registry                 6  Legacy registered assembly folders  indicated by  AssemblyFolders           7  Resolve to the GAC           8  Treat the reference s Include as if it were a real file name           9  Look in the application s output folder  like bin debug      -- gt   lt AssemblySearchPaths Condition      AssemblySearchPaths          gt     CandidateAssemblyFiles       ReferencePath      HintPathFromItem      TargetFrameworkDirectory      Registry   FrameworkRegistryBase    TargetFrameworkVersion    AssemblyFoldersSuffix   AssemblyFoldersExConditions       AssemblyFolders      GAC      RawFileName       OutDir   lt  AssemblySearchPaths gt    For  Net Framework 3 5 the definition is the same  but the comment is wrong  The 2 0 definition is slightly different  it uses   OutputPath  instead of   OutDir    On my machine I have the following versions of the file Microsoft Common targets   C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework v2 0 50727 Microsoft Common targets C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework v3 5 Microsoft Common targets C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework v4 0 30319 Microsoft Common targets  C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework64 v2 0 50727 Microsoft Common targets C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework64 v3 5 Microsoft Common targets C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework64 v4 0 30319 Microsoft Common targets   This is with Visual Studio 2008  2010 and 2013 installed on Windows 7   The fact that the output directory is searched can be a bit frustrating  as the original poster points out  because it may hide an incorrect HintPath  The solution builds OK on your local machine  but breaks when you build on in a clean folder structure  e g  on the build machine

User · Answer

Although this is an old document  but it helped me resolve the problem of  HintPath  being ignored on another machine  It was because the referenced DLL needed to be in source control as well   https   msdn microsoft com en-us library ee817675 aspx tdlg ch4 includeoutersystemassemblieswithprojects  Excerpt    To include and then reference an outer-system assembly 1  In Solution Explorer  right-click the project that needs to reference the assembly  and then click Add Existing Item  2  Browse to the assembly  and then click OK  The assembly is then copied into the project folder and automatically added to VSS  assuming the project is already under source control   3  Use the Browse button in the Add Reference dialog box to set a file reference to assembly in the project folder

[.net] HintPath vs ReferencePath in Visual Studio

Examples related to .net

Examples related to visual-studio

Examples related to dependencies