How do you attach a DLL to a asp.net site? I want to be able to debug and edit the DLL without having to keep replacing the reference in my asp.net site. I checked attach to process but didn't see the worker process. I am using asp.net, IIS 7.
Just put it into /bin folder of your web application.
OR
Add reference to this .dll by right clicking on References > Add Reference > Browse > Select your .dll file and lick OK.
Then set it's "Copy Local" property to "True". This way .dll will be copied into /Bin folder each time you build application.
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Using Visual Studio you should create a solution that has your website as a project and the DLL (code) as another project. Make a reference in the website project to the DLL project and it should update it automatically.
If you are not using the web application model and just the website model you could just have your DLL project output to your website's /bin directory directly. That will update the DLL in the website/bin folder whenever you build your DLL project.
If you want to edit the dll, open that project up in a second instance of Visual Studio and treat it like you would for any other project.
Set the reference in your /bin folder to the debug dll that the second Visual Studio creates.
I'm assuming you have Visual Studio...
If you're just trying to add a dll, you can add a reference to it by right clicking on your website node and choosing "Add Reference..." .
You will be able to debug the dll if you have its pdb along with it (to load the symbols from). You will NOT be able to edit the dll.
If the dll is in fact another project you have the source code for, just add the project to your solution, and from your website project add a reference from the "projects" tab. VS should add a reference and dependency so that it keeps the dll updated when you change code in your dll project.
Related
I have a VS2010 Web Application Project that's compiled to bin\subdir\ via Output Path and without build events.
There's a few other projects that my main project is referencing but for some reason the dll's for the other projects goes into BOTH bin\subdir\ AND bin! It only applies to other projects - if I reference a dll in my main project and set it to Copy Local it will only go to bin\subdir.
I have checked that all my configurations in the main project are pointing to bin\subdir\ and that none of the other projects are pointing to the bin-folder.
How do I tell VS2010 to ONLY compile to bin\subdir\ and never touch bin\?
Edit: Just tried creating a blank web project, changing output path to a directory in the bin-folder, adding a project to the solution, referencing it and then I compiled: dll's for the referenced project wind up in both bin and the directory from output path. Could this be a VS2010 bug?
Quick fix: Put the files from your bin folder in another folder and put this in your post build event:
del /q "$(ProjectDir)bin\*"
copy "$(ProjectDir)..\lib\Sitecore Bin" "$(ProjectDir)bin"
It's fixed in Visual Studio 2012.
The *.dll.refresh file tells visual studio about the class library location but whenever I delete it the application still works in debugging mode.
Why is this? Is the location not needed?
Because that's only a pointer to the referenced DLL.
It is used to copy the DLL to the bin location, but if you already copied the DLL, then deleting the .refresh file won't affect Visual Studio
If you delete the DLL from the bin folder and the _*.refresh_ file then you would get compilation errors if you try to access the types defined in the referenced DLL
dll.refresh files gives the path of the DLL in question to tell visual studio where to find it. They will be created each time you add a reference to the project.
They normally appear when you are using a project type that does not create a standard Visual Studio project file, as normally paths to referenced DLLs would go in there.
Their role ends once DLL gets loaded in your project. Hence you will not get any error
when you delete *.dll.refresh files from your project.
I have a ASP.NET project which relies upon the FreeImage .NET wrapper. This is loaded using a reference to a external directory. The wrapper relies upon the FreeImage.dll being present to work (clearly).
How do I get Visual Studio to include a reference to the FreeImage dll. It's not a .NET assembly, i think it was built in something else (so I can't add it as a reference).
I don't really want to have a copy for this project as these files reside in a different SVN repository
Add a pre-build macro/script to copy the file across each time you build. There's no way to add a symbolic link into a visstudio afaik.
I am assuming the .dll was built using a .NET supported language like C#.
You can just right click over the site and select 'Add Reference'.
Browse to the .dll you are looking for and then click 'Ok' to add it.
It should add a .refresh file to your site and the dll. The .refresh file is what is checked into your source control letting the site know the relative location of the .dll to the site.
I've got a question about something that's just been irritating me.
A colleague and I are building a support framework for our current client that we want to reference in other projects.
The DLL we want as a reference in our project would be an external reference. We're adding it by doing "Add Reference...", then browsing to the location of the .dll. What I want Visual Studio to do is only add the .xml, .pdb, and a .dll.refresh file, but instead it copies the actual .dll (and .xml and .pdb) into the bin.
When we rebuild the framework project, the other project that uses its .dll gets all out of whack until we drop and re-add the reference. Everything I've read online says that VS2008 is supposed to create the .dll.refresh files for you, but it never does.
Any ideas? Am I missing something or doing something wrong?
At this point I'm ready to add a pre-build event to simply copy the framework .dll into my bin, but the .refresh file seems like less of a hassle if it would just work.
Thanks.
UPDATE:
This SO post describes the actions that are supposed to be happening with the refresh files.
So it turns out that .refresh files are only created for Web Site projects, not Web Application projects.
The problem stems from Visual Studio having trouble deleting lock files for DLL references over 64kb, a problem supposedly fixed in VS 2010.
The current workaround is to close and reopen the solution or to unload and reload the project containing the references.
If the Projects are in the same Solution and you add a "Project Reference" that should solve your problem.
You can try to add references another way.
Add reference
Choose tab Browser (Not tab Project)
Choose *.dll that you need
I have tried it and been successful.
If you choose tab Project --> there are no *.dll.refresh added
Am I correct in assuming that I always need to explicitly deploy referenced assemblies when their source changes?
Yes you do. If you use the publish command in Visual Studios, it will include all the assemblies you need in the folder you selected to publish your site.
If a .dll has changed and you need to update your site, you can just publish again or copy the .dll.