C# get project references that are projects

Question

Is it possible to get all the project references that my project has? So for instance, my Project A has a reference to Project B and Project C. I don't want to get references for everything like libraries and such, just other projects in my solution. I need it in code so I can save it in a database.

Answer 1

You can use classes from Microsoft.Build.Evaluation to help with this.

Specifically, the ProjectCollection class. To use this you need to add the following references to your project:

• Microsoft.Build
• Microsoft.Build.Utilities.Core

(When adding these via the Reference Manager , look in Assemblies -> Extensions, otherwise you might reference an old version which doesn't work with newer project files.)

Then you can write code such as the following to iterate through all the project references:

using System;
using Microsoft.Build.Evaluation;

namespace Demo
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main()
        {
            var projectCollection = new ProjectCollection();
            var projFile          = @"E:\Test\CS7\ConsoleApp1\ConsoleApp1.csproj";
            var project           = projectCollection.LoadProject(projFile);
            var projectReferences = project.GetItems("ProjectReference");

            foreach (var projectReference in projectReferences)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(projectReference.EvaluatedInclude);
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

You can just right click on each project and navigate to the BuildDependencies > ProjectDependencies.

Assuming you're not trying to write an external project analyzer/dependency graph creator.

Update as per comment: If you are doing a static code analyzer (go through the files in the solution) you can iterate the .csproj files and extract the parts like the following:

  <ItemGroup>
    <ProjectReference Include="..\xyz.Service.Client\xyz.Service.Client.csproj" />
    <ProjectReference Include="..\xyz.Service.Interface\xyz.Service.Interface.csproj" />
    <ProjectReference Include="..\xyz.Web.Interface\xyz.Web.Interface.csproj" />
  </ItemGroup>

You can map it to a desired dto structure and save it as you wish. Here is some code that might ease the solution:

XNamespace msbuild = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003";
XDocument projDefinition = XDocument.Load(fullProjectPath);
IEnumerable<string> references = projDefinition
    .Element(msbuild + "Project")
    .Elements(msbuild + "ItemGroup")
    .Elements(msbuild + "Reference")
    .Select(refElem => refElem.Value);
foreach (string reference in references)
{
    Console.WriteLine(reference);
}

Answer 3

Unfortunately, there is no "IsPartOfSolution"-Flag you can check.

But it is relatively easy to condense the full list down:

IEnumerable<Assembly> assemblies = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies().Where(a => a.FullName.Contains("SolutionName"));  

Answer 4

Sounds like a code analyzer to me,

If you start a new 'Stand-Alone Code Analysis tool' project a pretty complete sample project will be generated for you. I'm not quite sure how far it goes, but you end up with a SolutionLoader object.

Iterate over the loader.Solution.Projects to get all projects in your solution. Each Project has a ProjectId and a property AllProjectReferences (which includes references outside your project).

Filtering these by projectId's which are included in your solution shoulg get you on your way.

Answer 5

I have this code in vb.net that could fit your requirements:

Private Sub GetProjectReferences()
    Dim lines = New List(Of String)
    Dim path = "..\..\TestApp.vbproj"
    For Each line In File.ReadAllLines(path)
        If line.Contains("<ProjectReference") Then
            Dim projNameWithExtension = line.Substring(line.LastIndexOf("\") + 1)
            Dim projName = projNameWithExtension.Substring(0, projNameWithExtension.IndexOf(".vbproj"))
            lines.Add(projName)
        End If
    Next
End Sub

If you translate it to c# (function and variable definitions, and .vbproj to .csproj) it could be of some use