Methods of managing source code

Question

I've written a fair amount of software over recent years, most of which all tend to share one or more common libraries. (The most common library, being one that I use for calling SQL stored procedures and returning arrays of objects)

I'm not happy with the way I manage the libraries, and I'm looking for suggestions to improve the way I work.

The first time I created what is now a shared library, I added the library as a separate class library project within the solution.

Now, when I start a new solution and I know I'm going to need a library I already have, I will go and find the library's project and copy the files into the new solution.

This leaves me with several copies of the the same library project dotted around my filesystem (and the SVN server), and it just doesn't feel right.

Is there a better way of working, so that I only have one master copy of this library that all the solutions share, rather than each solution having its own copy of the library project?

Answer 1

Just build the library once, and reference the compiled binary from your project that needs to use it.

In visual studio, right click on the project and click "add reference", then choose the "browse" tab and locate your libraries binary.

(You will obviously need to distribute the library assembly along with your application)