Introduction.

I take this opportunity to write about the Command line switches for making our .NET Project Release Builds with out much fuss. The Reason am writing this is that this topic mentioned above is much ignored topic across .NET developers circles. ...

Devenv Command Line Switches.

Devenv allows you to set various options for the integrated development environment (IDE) as well as compile, build, and debug projects from the command line. Use these switches to run the IDE from a script or .bat file, such as a nightly build script, or to launch the IDE in a particular configuration.

Tip To have Visual Studio launch and open a single file automatically in an editor, enter the full path and file name after typing Devenv with no additional switches or arguments. For example, devenv "D:\TestWinApp\testWinApp\testWinApp\ testWinApp.csproj".



Suppose if you give a wrong path of a solution file then the following Error Message will be thrown.



Devenv Switch Syntax.

Switches for Devenv follow syntax rules that are very similar to other DOS command line utilities. Devenv command line switches work for devenv.com and devenv.exe. By default, entering devenv without a file extension passes switches to devenv.com. Using devenv.com provides the correct delivery of output using standard system streams, such as stdout and stderr, and correct I/O redirection for capturing output, such as in a .txt file. To pass switches to devenv.exe, you must specify devenv.exe. All of the syntax rules listed below apply to devenv.com.

Tip The switch /? Displays a list of the available switches in the Command Prompt window for Devenv along with descriptions of their uses.

The following syntax rules apply to all switches and arguments:

The command line syntax must start with devenv. For example, to use the /fn switch you would type the following: 

devenv /fn arial

Switches are not case sensitive.

The first argument is typically a solution file name.

When you supply a project file name instead of a solution file name, Devenv does the following:

Searches the parent directory of the project file for a solution file of the same name. For example, if you specify myproject1.vbproj, Devenv looks for myproject1.sln.

Searches for a single solution file with a reference to the project file in the parent directory of the project file. If more than one solution references the project file or no solutions reference the project file, a temporary solution with the same name as the project file is created.

File paths and file names that include spaces must be enclosed in double quotation mark ("").

Include the drive letter when specifying file paths.

Separate multiple switches and arguments with one white space character.

Devenv does not accept wildcards or other pattern matching syntax.

Devenv Switches.

Use the following command line switches to display the integrated development environment and perform the described task.

3) Another Important point I want to make is that if we Consolidate all these command into a Single Batch file , then it will be very much helpful for us in making our Release Builds....

Advantages.

1) We hope to make many aspects of? Devenv /build? a little easier to use, but hopefully this information will make this feature less mystifying for the next time you want to use it.

2) If you look at the time it takes for loading the VS.Net projects and building. Using these Command line switches is comparably lot less then manual loading (Start->Programs->Visual Studio for .NET) of VS.Net project solutions and building. On the whole it will make the process of Building the Solutions much faster.

NOTE: THIS ARTICLE IS CONVERTED FROM C# TO VB.NET USING A CONVERSION TOOL. ORIGINAL ARTICLE CAN BE FOUND ON C# CORNER (WWW.C-SHARPCORNER.COM).