How do I add an existing directory tree to a project in Visual Studio

Question

The issue is simple really  Instead of creating folders in Visual Studio  I create a directory structure for my project on the file system  How do I include all the folders and files in a project  keeping the structure   If I  Add Existing File  on a folder named Services and navigate to a file in the directory structure    Services   AccountManagement   CreateAccount cs  it appears in Visual Studio like so  Services   CreateAccount cs  I do not want this   I have an entire directory structure worked out already  as I am mimicking our client developers using the same structure for organization  How do I add all the folders and files to the project in Visual Studio  Or do I have to do what most Microsoft users do and  put up with it  and recreate each and every folder through Visual Studio

User · Answer

Visual Studio 2017 and newer support a new lightweight .csproj format which has come to be known as "SDK format". One of several advantages of this format is that instead of containing a list of files and folders which are included, files are wildcard included by default. Therefore, with this new format, your files and folders - added in Explorer or on the command line - will get picked up automatically!

The SDK format .csproj file currently works with the following project types:

Class library projects
Console apps
ASP.NET Core web apps
.NET Core projects of any type

To use the new format, create a new .NET Core or .NET Standard project. Because the templates haven't been updated for the full .NET Framework even in Visual Studio 2019, to create a .NET class library choose the .NET Standard Library template, and then edit the project file to target the framework version of your choice (the new style project format can be edited inside Visual Studio - just right click the project in the Solution Explorer and select "Edit project file"). For example:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>net46</TargetFramework>
  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

Further reading:

User · Answer

I found no answer to my satisfaction  so I figured out myself   Here is the answer to you if you want to add external source codes to your project and don t want to copy over the entire codes  I have many dependencies on other gits and they are updated hourly if not minutely  I can t do copy every hour to sync up  Here is what you need to do   Assume this is structure    root projA src   root projA includes   root projB src   root projB includes   root yourProj src   root yourProj includes   Start your VS solution  Right-click the project name right below the Solution   Then click the  Add    New Filter   put the name  projA  for projA  Right-click on the  projA   click  Add    New Filter   enter name  src  Right-click on the  projA   click  Add    New Filter   enter name  includes  Right-click  projA   src   click  Add    Existing Item   then browse to the  root projA src to add all source codes or one by one for the ones you want  Do same for  projA   includes  Do same for projB  Now the external existing projects outside yours are present in your solution project  The VS will compile them together  Here is an trick  Since the projA and projB are virtual folders under your project  the compiler may not find the projA includes   If it doesn t find the projA includes  then right click the project  select the  Properties   Navigate to  C C     Edit  Additional Include Directories   add your projA include as such     projA includes   relative path    One caveat  if there are duplicated include header files  the  exclude from project  on the  Header file  doesn t really work  It s a bug in VS

User · Answer

In Visual Studio 2017  you switch between Solution View and Folder View back and forth  I think this is a better option  because it will keep the solution cleaner  I use this to edit  gitignore   md files  etc

User · Answer

As far as I can tell  the only way to do this in VS2010 is akin to the drag and drop method   Right click the solution to which you want to add a project   The application menu will have an add     item   Opening that  you find that one of the options is to add an existing project to the solution    In the dialog box that opens  navigate to the folder containing the project file for the solution and select it   VS will  as part of importing that project file  also import the entire directory and  I assume any subordinate directories which are part of that project   As this does require an existing project file  it won t be impossible to import a directory tree until that tree has been converted to a project

User · Answer

I think I found a way to do this with the Compile Include  quot   Code    cs quot  What I wanted is to include code recursively under my Code folder  Here is the project file sample   lt Project xmlns  quot http   schemas microsoft com developer msbuild 2003 quot  ToolsVersion  quot 15 0 quot  DefaultTargets  quot BuildTarget quot  gt       lt PropertyGroup gt           lt OutputType gt Library lt  OutputType gt       lt  PropertyGroup gt       lt PropertyGroup gt           lt StartupObject   gt       lt  PropertyGroup gt       lt PropertyGroup gt           lt RootNamespace gt Autogen lt  RootNamespace gt       lt  PropertyGroup gt       lt ItemGroup gt           lt Compile Remove  quot   Compile  quot    gt           lt Compile Include  quot   Code      cs quot    gt       lt  ItemGroup gt       lt Target Name  quot BuildTarget quot  gt           lt Message Text  quot Build selected quot  Importance  quot high quot   gt       lt  Target gt   lt  Project gt

User · Answer

In Visual Studio 2013  I couldn t get  Include in Project  to work when right-clicking on a folder   What did work is expanding the folder  selecting all the files then choosing  Include in Project    It was quite tedious as you have to do each folder one by one  but at least you can do all files in each folder in one go   and it appears to store the file path  you can see this by viewing properties on the file and looking at the  Relative Path  option    I am hoping to use this to deploy some data files in a Visual Studio Installer project  and it seems to pick up the included files and preserve their paths

User · Answer

In Visual Studio 2015  this is how you do it  If you want to automatically include all descendant files below a specific folder   lt Content Include  quot Path To Folder    quot    gt   This can be restricted to include only files within the path specified   lt Content Include  quot Path To Folder     quot    gt   Or even only files with a specified extension   lt Content Include  quot Path To Folder   jpg quot   gt

User · Answer

You need to put your directory structure in your project directory  And then click  Show All Files  icon in the top of Solution Explorer toolbox  After that  the added directory will be shown up  You will then need to select this directory  right click  and choose  Include in Project

User · Answer

You need to put your directory structure in your project directory  And then click  Show All Files  icon in the top of Solution Explorer toolbox  After that  the added directory will be shown up  You will then need to select this directory  right click  and choose  Include in Project

User · Answer

To expand on Yuchen s answer  you can include files and paths as a link  This is not the same thing as adding the existing items because it doesn t make an extra copy in your project s folder structure  It is useful if you want one canonical folder   file etc to be used in a lot of different places but you only want to maintain one version copy of it   Here is an example of what you can add to a   csproj file to create the link   lt Compile Include    Codez  z Libraries Common Strings RegexExtensions cs  gt       lt Link gt Helpers RegexExtensions cs lt  Link gt   lt  Compile gt    lt Compile Include        z Libraries MoreLINQ MoreLinq ExceptBy cs  gt       lt Link gt Helpers ExceptBy cs lt  Link gt   lt  Compile gt    lt Content Include  C  Codez Libs Folder OtherFolder         gt       lt Link gt   RecursiveDir   Filename   Extension  lt  Link gt       lt CopyToOutputDirectory gt PreserveNewest lt  CopyToOutputDirectory gt   lt  Content gt      Codez  is a Windows Environment variable I defined  you can use the built-in Environment variables in the same manner    The last example group is a bunch of content files I need in the final output  See https   stackoverflow com a 11808911 492 and other answers  amp  links there for more on that    More MSBuild info at https   msdn microsoft com en-us library bb629388 aspx

User · Answer

You need to put your directory structure in your project directory  And then click  Show All Files  icon in the top of Solution Explorer toolbox  After that  the added directory will be shown up  You will then need to select this directory  right click  and choose  Include in Project

User · Answer

As far as I can tell  the only way to do this in VS2010 is akin to the drag and drop method   Right click the solution to which you want to add a project   The application menu will have an add     item   Opening that  you find that one of the options is to add an existing project to the solution    In the dialog box that opens  navigate to the folder containing the project file for the solution and select it   VS will  as part of importing that project file  also import the entire directory and  I assume any subordinate directories which are part of that project   As this does require an existing project file  it won t be impossible to import a directory tree until that tree has been converted to a project

User · Answer

You can also drag and drop the folder from Windows nbsp Explorer onto your Visual Studio solution window

User · Answer

In Visual Studio 2013  I couldn t get  Include in Project  to work when right-clicking on a folder   What did work is expanding the folder  selecting all the files then choosing  Include in Project    It was quite tedious as you have to do each folder one by one  but at least you can do all files in each folder in one go   and it appears to store the file path  you can see this by viewing properties on the file and looking at the  Relative Path  option    I am hoping to use this to deploy some data files in a Visual Studio Installer project  and it seems to pick up the included files and preserve their paths

User · Answer

I found no answer to my satisfaction  so I figured out myself   Here is the answer to you if you want to add external source codes to your project and don t want to copy over the entire codes  I have many dependencies on other gits and they are updated hourly if not minutely  I can t do copy every hour to sync up  Here is what you need to do   Assume this is structure    root projA src   root projA includes   root projB src   root projB includes   root yourProj src   root yourProj includes   Start your VS solution  Right-click the project name right below the Solution   Then click the  Add    New Filter   put the name  projA  for projA  Right-click on the  projA   click  Add    New Filter   enter name  src  Right-click on the  projA   click  Add    New Filter   enter name  includes  Right-click  projA   src   click  Add    Existing Item   then browse to the  root projA src to add all source codes or one by one for the ones you want  Do same for  projA   includes  Do same for projB  Now the external existing projects outside yours are present in your solution project  The VS will compile them together  Here is an trick  Since the projA and projB are virtual folders under your project  the compiler may not find the projA includes   If it doesn t find the projA includes  then right click the project  select the  Properties   Navigate to  C C     Edit  Additional Include Directories   add your projA include as such     projA includes   relative path    One caveat  if there are duplicated include header files  the  exclude from project  on the  Header file  doesn t really work  It s a bug in VS

User · Answer

You can also drag and drop the folder from Windows nbsp Explorer onto your Visual Studio solution window

User · Answer

In Visual Studio 2015  this is how you do it  If you want to automatically include all descendant files below a specific folder   lt Content Include  quot Path To Folder    quot    gt   This can be restricted to include only files within the path specified   lt Content Include  quot Path To Folder     quot    gt   Or even only files with a specified extension   lt Content Include  quot Path To Folder   jpg quot   gt

User · Answer

To expand on Yuchen s answer  you can include files and paths as a link  This is not the same thing as adding the existing items because it doesn t make an extra copy in your project s folder structure  It is useful if you want one canonical folder   file etc to be used in a lot of different places but you only want to maintain one version copy of it   Here is an example of what you can add to a   csproj file to create the link   lt Compile Include    Codez  z Libraries Common Strings RegexExtensions cs  gt       lt Link gt Helpers RegexExtensions cs lt  Link gt   lt  Compile gt    lt Compile Include        z Libraries MoreLINQ MoreLinq ExceptBy cs  gt       lt Link gt Helpers ExceptBy cs lt  Link gt   lt  Compile gt    lt Content Include  C  Codez Libs Folder OtherFolder         gt       lt Link gt   RecursiveDir   Filename   Extension  lt  Link gt       lt CopyToOutputDirectory gt PreserveNewest lt  CopyToOutputDirectory gt   lt  Content gt      Codez  is a Windows Environment variable I defined  you can use the built-in Environment variables in the same manner    The last example group is a bunch of content files I need in the final output  See https   stackoverflow com a 11808911 492 and other answers  amp  links there for more on that    More MSBuild info at https   msdn microsoft com en-us library bb629388 aspx

User · Answer

I think I found a way to do this with the Compile Include  quot   Code    cs quot  What I wanted is to include code recursively under my Code folder  Here is the project file sample   lt Project xmlns  quot http   schemas microsoft com developer msbuild 2003 quot  ToolsVersion  quot 15 0 quot  DefaultTargets  quot BuildTarget quot  gt       lt PropertyGroup gt           lt OutputType gt Library lt  OutputType gt       lt  PropertyGroup gt       lt PropertyGroup gt           lt StartupObject   gt       lt  PropertyGroup gt       lt PropertyGroup gt           lt RootNamespace gt Autogen lt  RootNamespace gt       lt  PropertyGroup gt       lt ItemGroup gt           lt Compile Remove  quot   Compile  quot    gt           lt Compile Include  quot   Code      cs quot    gt       lt  ItemGroup gt       lt Target Name  quot BuildTarget quot  gt           lt Message Text  quot Build selected quot  Importance  quot high quot   gt       lt  Target gt   lt  Project gt

User · Answer

You can use a symbolic link  This makes modifying the file in one project modify it in the other  as it s actually the same file    To do this    Open cmd prompt as administrator  mklink  d  current project directory name   directory in other project it should point to    This has it s drawbacks and pitfalls  but I use it on occasion for duplicate libraries that need different names   Edit for Anoop  Steps to add to Visual Studio    Create link in the project folder using the steps above  In Visual Studio    select project in Solution Explorer  At the top of Solution Explorer    click the Show All Files button  may need to click it twice if already active   The link will now show in your project    right-click and choose Include In Project    These are the steps I follow and works for a couple different projects

User · Answer

You need to put your directory structure in your project directory  And then click  Show All Files  icon in the top of Solution Explorer toolbox  After that  the added directory will be shown up  You will then need to select this directory  right click  and choose  Include in Project

User · Answer

You can also drag and drop the folder from Windows nbsp Explorer onto your Visual Studio solution window

[visual-studio] How do I add an existing directory tree to a project in Visual Studio?

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