Visual Studio

Microsoft.TextTemplating.targets was not imported due to the file not existing

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Problem You have a project that is using text templating and you’re upgrading to a new version of Visual Studio. When you open the project, you get error messages about not being able to import the Microsoft.TextTemplating.targets project: Project “…\v16.0\TextTemplating\Microsoft.TextTemplating.targets” was not imported by “…SomeProject.csproj” at (7,3), due to the file not existing. The error … Read more

How to turn off IntelliCode completion suggestions in Visual Studio

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Visual Studio 2022 has a feature called IntelliCode completions that suggests full line completions as you’re typing. It’s enabled by default. It shows a greyed out suggestion based on what it thinks you’re going to want. This is different from the regular IntelliSense modal popup that shows below the line you’re typing. Here’s what it … Read more

Quick way to create a unit test project in Visual Studio

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You don’t need to manually create a unit test project (through the UI or through the command line). Instead, you can can use the Create Unit Tests command in Visual Studio to generate a unit test project, add it to the solution, and wire up a test stub all at once. Note: This approach can … Read more

C# – IDE0060: Remove unused parameter

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If you have a method with a parameter, and that parameter is not used in the method, then you’ll get the IDE0060 message telling you to remove the unused parameter. Here’s an example of code that would trigger this message: The encrypt parameter isn’t being used in the Send() method, triggering the IDE0060 message: IDE0060 … Read more

System.Data.SqlClient is missing in a .NET Core project

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When you create a new project in .NET Core, and you try to use a class from ADO.NET, such as SqlConnection, you’ll get missing reference errors. For example, your code might look something like this, and it’ll have red-squiggly lines under SqlConnection: In the past, you’d simply add a reference to System.Data.SqlClient, like this: To … Read more

.NET – Copy files to a specified directory after the build

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The simplest way to copy files post-build in a .NET project is to use the MSBuild Copy Task in the .csproj file, like this: Note: I’m using VS2019. My project is called NotesAPI. When I build, it logs the following messages: It copied the following build files into C:\Build\NotesAPI: NotesAPI.dll NotesAPI.pdb In this article, I’ll … Read more

C# – Conditional compilation

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You can exclude specific code from being compiled by using conditional compilation symbols. There are a few predefined symbols that support common scenarios – conditional compilation based on target framework (ex: .NET 5 vs .NET Core 3.1) and based on build configuration (Debug vs Release). In addition, you can add your own symbols to handle … Read more