Conditional Assembly reference

[Oldman]

How do you conditionally reference an assembly based off of the build
configuration? Imagine a scenario where I want to have an Sql Release Server
build and an Oracle Release Build and the only difference between them is a
reference to a different assembly.

Is it possible to do this in VS2005?

[Peter Rilling]

Re: Conditional Assembly reference

You will probably have to dynamically load the assemblies.

"Oldman" <Oldman@discuss ions.microsoft. com> wrote in message
news:4C7D9868-1FA4-45CC-8E65-4599B2435505@mi crosoft.com...[color=blue]
> How do you conditionally reference an assembly based off of the build
> configuration? Imagine a scenario where I want to have an Sql Release
> Server
> build and an Oracle Release Build and the only difference between them is
> a
> reference to a different assembly.
>
> Is it possible to do this in VS2005?[/color]

[Oldman]

Re: Conditional Assembly reference

Thanks for your response. So your saying that there isn't a way to do this.
The problem is dynamically loading the assemblies won't help me because the
source wouldn't compile unless one of the two assemblies was referenced.

"Peter Rilling" wrote:
[color=blue]
> You will probably have to dynamically load the assemblies.
>
> "Oldman" <Oldman@discuss ions.microsoft. com> wrote in message
> news:4C7D9868-1FA4-45CC-8E65-4599B2435505@mi crosoft.com...[color=green]
> > How do you conditionally reference an assembly based off of the build
> > configuration? Imagine a scenario where I want to have an Sql Release
> > Server
> > build and an Oracle Release Build and the only difference between them is
> > a
> > reference to a different assembly.
> >
> > Is it possible to do this in VS2005?[/color]
>
>
>[/color]

[Marina]

Re: Conditional Assembly reference

Well, it would help you if you wanted to code the entire thing using
reflection. Which I don't think you do.

I guess you could use reflection to create the objects, then cast them to
the appropriate interface/base class type, and reference them through that
as opposed to the actual class name.

Other then that, you just have to include all the references required for
compile.

"Oldman" <Oldman@discuss ions.microsoft. com> wrote in message
news:B5BA3DAE-C42C-4021-9A4B-9CC0B9113A91@mi crosoft.com...[color=blue]
> Thanks for your response. So your saying that there isn't a way to do
> this.
> The problem is dynamically loading the assemblies won't help me because
> the
> source wouldn't compile unless one of the two assemblies was referenced.
>
> "Peter Rilling" wrote:
>[color=green]
>> You will probably have to dynamically load the assemblies.
>>
>> "Oldman" <Oldman@discuss ions.microsoft. com> wrote in message
>> news:4C7D9868-1FA4-45CC-8E65-4599B2435505@mi crosoft.com...[color=darkred]
>> > How do you conditionally reference an assembly based off of the build
>> > configuration? Imagine a scenario where I want to have an Sql Release
>> > Server
>> > build and an Oracle Release Build and the only difference between them
>> > is
>> > a
>> > reference to a different assembly.
>> >
>> > Is it possible to do this in VS2005?[/color]
>>
>>
>>[/color][/color]

[Oldman]

Re: Conditional Assembly reference

You're touching on what I know is the right way to do this but is not
possible in my scenario. What really needs to be done is to have
interfaces/abstract classes defined in one assembly and the main application
references only that assembly.
You can then use a plugin architecture to dynamically load the correct
assembly and create the instances behind the scenes.

The problem with my scenario is I want to shove code generated obects
(strong typed datasets) into their own assemblies and there is no way it is
productive to create base interfaces for the code-generated objects.
Especially since they change so much.

This kind of stinks but it just blows this approach out of the water for
dealing with provider generic code.

What I'm really trying to do is come up with a way to get around all the
deficienices of using strong typed datasets and table adapters while trying
to talk with two different databases. It wouldn't have been ideal but it
would have been a start to just have two different kits one for Oracle
support and one for SQL Server.

The old Visual Studios (prior to .NET) also had a way to say that even a
certain file in the project should or should not be built for a particular
build configuration. This might have worked as well.

"Marina" wrote:
[color=blue]
> Well, it would help you if you wanted to code the entire thing using
> reflection. Which I don't think you do.
>
> I guess you could use reflection to create the objects, then cast them to
> the appropriate interface/base class type, and reference them through that
> as opposed to the actual class name.
>
> Other then that, you just have to include all the references required for
> compile.
>
> "Oldman" <Oldman@discuss ions.microsoft. com> wrote in message
> news:B5BA3DAE-C42C-4021-9A4B-9CC0B9113A91@mi crosoft.com...[color=green]
> > Thanks for your response. So your saying that there isn't a way to do
> > this.
> > The problem is dynamically loading the assemblies won't help me because
> > the
> > source wouldn't compile unless one of the two assemblies was referenced.
> >
> > "Peter Rilling" wrote:
> >[color=darkred]
> >> You will probably have to dynamically load the assemblies.
> >>
> >> "Oldman" <Oldman@discuss ions.microsoft. com> wrote in message
> >> news:4C7D9868-1FA4-45CC-8E65-4599B2435505@mi crosoft.com...
> >> > How do you conditionally reference an assembly based off of the build
> >> > configuration? Imagine a scenario where I want to have an Sql Release
> >> > Server
> >> > build and an Oracle Release Build and the only difference between them
> >> > is
> >> > a
> >> > reference to a different assembly.
> >> >
> >> > Is it possible to do this in VS2005?
> >>
> >>
> >>[/color][/color]
>
>
>[/color]

[Alan Pretre]

Re: Conditional Assembly reference

"Oldman" <Oldman@discuss ions.microsoft. com> wrote in message
news:4C7D9868-1FA4-45CC-8E65-4599B2435505@mi crosoft.com...[color=blue]
> How do you conditionally reference an assembly based off of the build
> configuration? Imagine a scenario where I want to have an Sql Release
> Server
> build and an Oracle Release Build and the only difference between them is
> a
> reference to a different assembly.[/color]

You can just reference both in VS. Assuming you have #if ORACLE whatever
conditional compilation sections in your code, VS should optimize away the
reference to the unused one in the build. I do this all the time with
NUnit. The NUnit reference is optimized out in release builds and I do not
distribute that DLL with the apps.

-- Alan

[Oldman]

Re: Conditional Assembly reference

I figured out my own question.
Although I don't see a way to do it through the IDE you can go into the
csproj file and add an attribute called Condition to the project reference.
For example, you can do the following:

<ProjectReferen ce Include="MyTest Project.csproj" Condition="
'$(Configuratio n)' == 'Oracle Release' ">
<Project>{ 7E93BE13-47DB-499F-B81F-04B19776352C} </Project>
<Name>MyTestPro ject</Name>
</ProjectReferenc e>


"Peter Rilling" wrote:
[color=blue]
> You will probably have to dynamically load the assemblies.
>
> "Oldman" <Oldman@discuss ions.microsoft. com> wrote in message
> news:4C7D9868-1FA4-45CC-8E65-4599B2435505@mi crosoft.com...[color=green]
> > How do you conditionally reference an assembly based off of the build
> > configuration? Imagine a scenario where I want to have an Sql Release
> > Server
> > build and an Oracle Release Build and the only difference between them is
> > a
> > reference to a different assembly.
> >
> > Is it possible to do this in VS2005?[/color]
>
>
>[/color]

[Oldman]

Re: Conditional Assembly reference

Alan,

That is a great workaround. FYI: I did find a way to actually place a
condition on a reference but your way might be easier. See my other post if
you are interested in how to do it.

-- Chris

"Alan Pretre" wrote:
[color=blue]
> "Oldman" <Oldman@discuss ions.microsoft. com> wrote in message
> news:4C7D9868-1FA4-45CC-8E65-4599B2435505@mi crosoft.com...[color=green]
> > How do you conditionally reference an assembly based off of the build
> > configuration? Imagine a scenario where I want to have an Sql Release
> > Server
> > build and an Oracle Release Build and the only difference between them is
> > a
> > reference to a different assembly.[/color]
>
> You can just reference both in VS. Assuming you have #if ORACLE whatever
> conditional compilation sections in your code, VS should optimize away the
> reference to the unused one in the build. I do this all the time with
> NUnit. The NUnit reference is optimized out in release builds and I do not
> distribute that DLL with the apps.
>
> -- Alan
>
>
>[/color]