Asp.net web project file types

Item elements can also include ItemMetadata child elements. These are user-defined key-value pairs and essentially represent properties that are specific to that item. For example, a lot of the Compile item elements in the project file include DependentUpon child elements.

In addition to user-created item metadata, all items are assigned various common metadata on creation. For more information, see Well-known Item Metadata. You can create ItemGroup elements within the root-level Project element or within specific Target elements. ItemGroup elements also support Condition attributes, which lets you tailor the inputs to the build process according to conditions like the project configuration or platform. In the MSBuild schema, a Task element represents an individual build instruction or task.

MSBuild includes a multitude of predefined tasks. For example:. For more information on tasks, including how to create your own custom tasks, see MSBuild Tasks. Tasks must always be contained within Target elements.

A Target element is a set of one or more tasks that are executed sequentially, and a project file can contain multiple targets. When you want to run a task, or a set of tasks, you invoke the target that contains them. For example, suppose you have a simple project file that logs a message.

Alternatively, you can add a DefaultTargets attribute to the Project element, to specify the targets that you want to invoke. In this case, you don't need to specify the target from the command line. Both targets and tasks can include Condition attributes. As such, you can choose to omit entire targets or individual tasks if certain conditions are met. Generally speaking, when you create useful tasks and targets, you'll need to refer to the properties and items that you've defined elsewhere in the project file:.

Remember that if you create multiple items with the same name, you're building a list. In contrast, if you create multiple properties with the same name, the last property value you provide will overwrite any previous properties with the same name—a property can only contain a single value.

For example, in the Publish. If the BuildingInTeamBuild parameter is specified and has a value of true , none of the tasks within this target will be executed. The target contains a single instance of the MSBuild task. This task lets you build other MSBuild projects. The ProjectsToBuild item is passed to the task. This item could represent a list of project or solution files, all defined by ProjectsToBuild item elements within an item group. In this case, the ProjectsToBuild item refers to a single solution file.

These are set to parameter values if they are provided, or static property values if they are not. You can also see that the MSBuild task invokes a target named Build. This is one of several built-in targets that are widely used in Visual Studio project files and are available to you in your custom project files, like Build , Clean , Rebuild , and Publish.

You'll learn more about using targets and tasks to control the build process, and about the MSBuild task in particular, later in this topic. For more information on targets, see MSBuild Targets. Suppose you want to be able to deploy a solution to multiple environments, like test servers, staging platforms, and production environments.

The configuration may vary substantially between these environments—not just in terms of server names, connection strings, and so on, but also potentially in terms of credentials, security settings, and lots of other factors. If you need to do this regularly, it's not really expedient to edit multiple properties in your project file every time you switch the target environment.

Nor is it an ideal solution to require an endless list of property values to be provided to the build process. Fortunately there is an alternative. MSBuild lets you split your build configuration across multiple project files. To see how this works, in the sample solution, notice that there are two custom project files:. Now notice that the Publish. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. Typically a Global. A Web user control file that defines a custom functionality that you can add to any ASP.

NET Web Forms page. A handler file that is invoked in response to a Web request in order to generate dynamic content. An XML Web services file that contains classes and methods that can be invoked by other Web applications.

An ASP. A handler file that is used to manage Web site administration requests, such as Trace. A precompiled stub files that point to an assembly that represents a compiled Web site file. When you precompile a Web site project, executable file types. NET features. NET page, in the same directory as the Web page. Source code files. A distributed service diagram DSD file that can be added to any Visual Studio solution that provides or consumes Web services to reverse-engineer an architectural view of the Web service interactions.

A compiled class library file assembly. A license file. Licensing allows control authors to help protect intellectual property by checking that a user is authorized to use the control. A resource file that contains resource strings that refer to images, localizable text, or other data.

NET Web site. Some file types can only exist in special ASP. NET subdirectories. For example, browser definition files. For a list of file types, see Web Site File Types. For details about creating special ASP. NET folders, see the subsequent procedure. Web sites in Visual Studio are directory based. When you open a Web site, Visual Studio treats all of the files in the folder that you open — whether the files are in the file system, in an Internet Information Services IIS application, or on an FTP site — as part of the same Web site.

In the Add New Item dialog box, under Visual Studio installed templates , select the file type that you want to add.