In Wix, can one define a ComponentGroup and Directory at the same time?

Question

I'm new to WiX. Very new. Is there a way to define both a ComponentGroup and a Directory at the same time?

I have a large number of files, on the order of 300 or so total, that need to be split into a number of groups, with each group having somewhere around 50 files.

Using heat.exe, I was able to create a Fragment that creates Components for each file. I would like to avoid having to re-list each and every one of these components in a separate ComponentGroup definition. I would love to be able to wrap the list of components generated by heat in a ComponentGroup definition, then simply use that ComponentGroupRef inside of a DirectoryRef structure.

I hope this clears it up. I currently must do:

<DirectoryRef Id="FilesDir">
  <Component Id="a.txt" Guid="YOUR-GUID">
    <File Id="a.txt" KeyPath="yes" Source="SourceDir\a.txt" />
  </Component>
  <Component Id="b.txt" Guid="YOUR-GUID">
    <File Id="b.txt" KeyPath="yes" Source="SourceDir\b.txt" />
  </Component>
...
  <Component Id="z.txt" Guid="YOUR-GUID">
    <File Id="z.txt" KeyPath="yes" Source="SourceDir\z.txt" />
  </Component>
</DirectoryRef>

<ComponentGroup Id="FilesGroup">
  <ComponentRef Id="a.txt">
  <ComponentRef Id="b.txt">
...
  <ComponentRef Id="z.txt">
</ComponentGroup>

I have to list every file twice. That stinks.

I'd like to be able to do:

<ComponentGroup Id="FilesGroup">
  <Component Id="a.txt" Guid="YOUR-GUID">
    <File Id="a.txt" KeyPath="yes" Source="SourceDir\a.txt" />
  </Component>
  <Component Id="b.txt" Guid="YOUR-GUID">
    <File Id="b.txt" KeyPath="yes" Source="SourceDir\b.txt" />
  </Component>
...
  <Component Id="z.txt" Guid="YOUR-GUID">
    <File Id="z.txt" KeyPath="yes" Source="SourceDir\z.txt" />
  </Component>
</ComponentGroup>

<DirectoryRef Id="FilesDir">
  <ComponentGroupRef Id="FilesGroup">
</DirectoryRef>

Is that possible? Is there some other way of making this easier that I'm just not seeing?

Update: We abandoned Wix, and therefore I'm not sure if I should mark a solution or not. If someone feels one of the answers below IS the answer to my now-rather-old question, please let me know, and I'll mark the appropriate answer as such.

Answer 1

I hope I understand your question correct. I am using heat tool on every build to autogenerate wxs containing components targetting contents of my build output directory. The WXS (after simplification) looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi">
    <Fragment>
        <ComponentGroup Id="CompGroup01">
            <Component Id="cmp1D6110E9A0B9E351095F414BEB4D2E35" Directory="Dir01" Guid="*">
                <File Id="fil53541B947C7CE0A96A604898F1B825C5" KeyPath="yes" Source="$(var.HarvestDir)\somefile.exe" />
            </Component>
        </ComponentGroup>
    </Fragment>
</Wix>

in the Product.wxs I have this hardcode link to autogenerated code:

    <Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir">
  <Directory Id="ProgramFilesFolder" Name="PFiles">
      <Directory Id="INSTALLDIR" Name="myInstallDir">
        <Directory Id="Dir01" Name="myInstallSubDir" />
      </Directory>
    </Directory>
</Directory>

<Feature Id="ProductFeature" Title="MyProductComplete" Level="1">
  <ComponentGroupRef Id="CompGroup01" />
</Feature>

In wixproj file there is a "harvest-task" defined (it is not absolutely clean, but it works). The wixproj is not complete, I deleted all irrelevant parts:

<PropertyGroup>
    <!-- relative path to directory from which setup will load input files -->
    <MyWixSourceDir>C:\bin</MyWixSourceDir>
    <!-- relative path to directory where inputs will be temporarily copied during harvesting -->
    <MyWixHarvestDir>tempHarvest</MyWixHarvestDir>
    <DefineConstants>Debug;HarvestDirApp=$(ProjectDir)$(MyWixHarvestDir)</DefineConstants>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
    <!-- defines item group containing files which represent automatically harvested input for our WiX setup -->
    <SetupInputFiles Include="$(MyWixSourceDir)\**\*.*" />
</ItemGroup>
<ItemGroup>
    <!-- defines item group of autogenerated files -->
    <AutoGeneratedFiles Include="*.autogenerated.wxs" />
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
    <!-- 1) prepare harvesting -->
    <!-- remove temporary harvesting directory in case previous build did not cleaned up its temp files and folders -->
    <RemoveDir Directories="$(ProjectDir)$(MyWixHarvestDir)" />
    <!-- delete old autogenerated files first -->
    <Delete Files="@(AutoGeneratedFiles)" ContinueOnError="false" />
    <!-- 2) harvest application build output -->
    <!-- copies input files into temporary directory so that they can be harvested into WXS file -->
    <Copy SourceFiles="@(SetupInputFiles)" DestinationFiles="@(SetupInputFiles->'$(ProjectDir)$(MyWixHarvestDir)\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)')" ContinueOnError="false" />
    <!-- harvest files and produce WXS file defining all file and directory components for the setup -->
    <Exec Command="&quot;$(WixExtDir)heat&quot; dir $(ProjectDir)$(MyWixHarvestDir) -dr Dir01 -sreg -srd -ag -cg CompGroup01 -var var.HarvestDirApp -out InstallDirApp.autogenerated.wxs" ContinueOnError="false" WorkingDirectory="." />
</Target>
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
    <!-- 4) clean-up: remove temporary harvesting directory -->
    <RemoveDir Directories="$(ProjectDir)$(KbcWixHarvestDir)" />
</Target>

Most important is the Exec element which executes the harvesting. I use "-dr Dir01" to define that components will reference "Dir01" as parent directory and "-cg ComGroup01" to define the componentGroup.