Include Files using Wildcard into a folder in Visual Studio

Question

I am using

<ItemGroup>
  <EmbeddedResource Include="..\..\resources\hbm\*.hbm.xml" />
</ItemGroup>

to include a bunch of xml files into my C# project. Works fine.

But, I don't want them in the "root level" of my project, I would rather see them in a subfolder in my project.

For example, this file is included into a Mapping folder in Visual Studio:

<ItemGroup>
  <EmbeddedResource Include="Mapping\User.hbm.xml" />
</ItemGroup>

That's what I want for my *.hbm.xml files.

I can't figure out how to do it and still keep my wildcard *.hbm.xml part and also keep the actual files in a different directory.

I've looked at MSDN's doc on MSBUILD and items, but no luck.

Answer 1

Perhaps this has changed in MSBuild since the original answer was posted, but it is possible to use both wildcards and links at the same time. For example, I use the following block in a C# project to import data files into a test library.

<ItemGroup>
  <None Include="..\SOMENAME.Tests\data\**\*.*">
    <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    <Link>data\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)</Link>
  </None>
</ItemGroup>

The only disadvantage I've seen so far is that MSBuild recreates the folder names on the file system (ie $(ProjectPath)\data\somesubfolder) which is a little annoying but not a huge issue.

As a test, I also tried the OP's request of embedding resources, using the following snippet, and again this seemed to work fine - dotPeek showed the resources were present in the compiled assembly in addition to being present in the Solution Explorer.

<ItemGroup>
  <EmbeddedResource  Include="..\SOMENAME.Tests\data\**\*.*">
      <Link>resources\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)</Link>
  </EmbeddedResource>
</ItemGroup>

(This was using Visual Studio 2013 and still works as of VS2019)

Update 08Jun2021: The above syntax works is fine for old style csproj files, but if you are using the new SDK format, the syntax is a little different, albeit simpler.

The OP's original question of wildcard embedding can be accomplished with the following

<ItemGroup>
  <EmbeddedResource Include="data\**\*.*" />
</ItemGroup>

And to have wildcard file copies for changed or missing files.

<ItemGroup>
  <None Update="data\**\*.*">
    <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
  </None>
</ItemGroup>

Answer 2

I think you can't use links and wildcard at the same time.

You could use this notation to link to include User.hbm.xml file in Mapping folder in Visual Studio :

<ItemGroup>
  <EmbeddedResource Include="..\..\resources\hbm\User.hbm.xml">
    <Link>Mapping\User.hbm.xml</Link>
  </EmbeddedResource>
</ItemGroup>

But you can't do that

<ItemGroup>
  <EmbeddedResource Include="..\..\resources\hbm\**\*.hbm.xml">
    <Link>%(RecursiveDir)\%(Filename)%(Extension)</Link>
  </EmbeddedResource>
</ItemGroup>