How can I build a 'dependency tree diagram' from my .NET solution

Question

I can get easily see what projects and dlls a single project references from within a Visual Studio .NET project.

Is there any application or use of reflection that can build me a full dependency tree that I can use to plot a graphical chart of dependencies?

Answer 1

NDepend comes with an interactive dependency graph coupled with a dependency matrix. You can download and use the free trial edition of NDepend for a while.

More on NDepend Dependency Graph

More on NDepend Dependency Matrix:

Disclaimer: I am part of the tool team

Answer 2

I needed something similar, but didn't want to pay for (or install) a tool to do it. I created a quick PowerShell script that goes through the project references and spits them out in a yuml.me friendly-format instead:

Function Get-ProjectReferences ($rootFolder)
{
    $projectFiles = Get-ChildItem $rootFolder -Filter *.csproj -Recurse
    $ns = @{ defaultNamespace = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" }

    $projectFiles | ForEach-Object {
        $projectFile = $_ | Select-Object -ExpandProperty FullName
        $projectName = $_ | Select-Object -ExpandProperty BaseName
        $projectXml = [xml](Get-Content $projectFile)
        
        $projectReferences = $projectXml | Select-Xml '//defaultNamespace:ProjectReference/defaultNamespace:Name' -Namespace $ns | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Node | Select-Object -ExpandProperty "#text"
        
        $projectReferences | ForEach-Object {
            "[" + $projectName + "] -> [" + $_ + "]"
        }
    }
}

Get-ProjectReferences "C:\Users\DanTup\Documents\MyProject" | Out-File "C:\Users\DanTup\Documents\MyProject\References.txt"

_{(source: yuml.me)}