VisualStudio: How to save the obj folder somewhere else

Question

Does anyone know how to tell VS(2008) where to save the obj folder when building the solution? We have it save the bin folder to another path in order to keep the source file folders small (ie. emailable), but can't find any way to tell it to do the same with obj...

Answer 1

Use the BaseIntermediateOutputPath property in the project file (.csproj, .vbproj, etc.), as explained at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb629394.aspx. You'll have to manually edit the XML document using a text editor, then reload it in Visual Studio. It may still create the obj folder (that's a known bug), but will leave it empty and put the actual obj files in your specified folder.

Answer 2

1. You add this to your project file below <OutputPath> tag:

   <IntermediateOutputPath>..\Whatever\obj\</IntermediateOutputPath>
   

2. VS will still create obj folder , so you have to delete it every time after a build. This can be done by putting the following script to the post-build part in VS :

   rd "$(ProjectDir)obj" /S /Q
   

Answer 3

Do you use version control? If you do, there's an alternative:

You can exclude bin/ and obj/ from version control and check out your project instead of e-mailing. If you use Subversion, you could also Export your project and e-mail the exported and zipped folder.

Answer 4

It's the Output Directory under Properties > General of the project settings.

Edit: it seems like there is a difference between the project settings for native C++ projects (which I'm using) and CLR based projects (which might be what the OP is referring to).