Is there anyway to #define CONSTANT on a solution basis? [duplicate]

Question

Is There anyway to #define Constant on a Visual Studio Solution Basis?

One can define a constant on a csproject basis, and one can put #define constant in cs file, but I wonder whether one can define it on a vs sln basis?

Answer 1

You can actually use a variation on Ritch's approach with common project settings. Essentially you have to make a single change to the end of each project file in your solution:

  <PropertyGroup Condition="'$(SolutionDir)' == '' or                      '$(SolutionDir)' == '*undefined*'">       <SolutionDir>..\..\</SolutionDir>     </PropertyGroup>     <Import Project="$(SolutionDir)CommonSettings.targets" />   </Project> 

Then you can define CommonSettings.targets to contain the solution wide settings.

  <Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003"            ToolsVersion="3.5">       <PropertyGroup>           <TacoBuild>true</TacoBuild>       </PropertyGroup>   </Project> 

That's basically it unless you want to override or merge project settings already defined in each project. The link below discusses how to do this in some detail.

http://www.ademiller.com/blogs/tech/2007/12/common-project-settings-for-your-visual-studio-solution/

Answer 2

I have another approach for doing this:

1. Edit global config file. For example in my case it's .netcf2.0 so it's $(MSBuildBinPath)\microsoft.compactframework.csharp.targets.

   Add the following line:

   <Import Project="$(SolutionDir)CommonSettings.targets" Condition="exists('$(SolutionDir)CommonSettings.targets')" /> 

   This is to tell MSBuild import the CommonSettings.targets if it's existed in your solution folder.

2. Create CommonSettings.targets under your solution folder.

   For example to define ABC symbol:

   <Project DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">     <PropertyGroup>     <DefineConstants>$(DefineConstants);ABC</DefineConstants>     </PropertyGroup> </Project>