MsBuildDuplicateProjectGuid

Utility to find duplicated MsBuild Project GUIDs

Background

In the MSBuild Project System, the ProjectGuid is expected to exist in each MSBuild Style Project. It is used in several places; most importantly:

• Any ProjectReference should contain the Project Guid (in the Project Tag)
  • Microsoft Docs: Common MSBuild Project Items - ProjectReference
• The ProjectGuid is used in the Visual Studio Solution File as a way to Reference the Project
  • Microsoft Docs: ProjectInSolution.ProjectGuid Property

As the name suggests (ProjectGuid) this is expected to be a Globally Unique IDentifier.

The tooling is so dependent upon this fact that if you attempt to import two projects which have identical ProjectGuid into a Visual Studio Solution File one will be chosen as the loser and its Guid Regenerated.

Duplication most often happens because a developer was attempting to use an existing project as a "template" for a new project.

There is nothing wrong with making a copy of an existing project, but when you do so you need to take special care to generate a new ProjectGuid tag.

When To Use This Tool

This tool will help you identify projects (within a subfolder) that are not "Globally Unique".

However, this tool does not attempt to make corrections. In order to do so look at https://github.com/aolszowka/MsBuildSetProjectGuid

Usage

There are now two ways to run this tool:

1. (Compiled Executable) Invoke the tool via MsBuildDuplicateProjectGuid.exe and pass the arguments.
2. (Dotnet Tool) Install this tool using the following command dotnet tool install MsBuildDuplicateProjectGuid (assuming that you have the nuget package in your feed) then invoke it via dotnet duplicate-projectguid

In both cases the flags are identical to the tooling.

Usage: C:\DirectoryWithProjects

Scans given directory for MsBuild Projects; reporting any duplicate ProjectGuids
it finds.

Arguments:

              <>             The directory to scan for MSBuild Projects
      --xml                  Produce Output in XML Format
  -?, -h, --help             Show this message and exit

Hacking

The most likely change you will want to make is changing the supported project files. In theory this tool should support any MSBuild Project Format that utilizes a ProjectGuid. This means that .NET Core Projects will not work out of the box.

See MsBuildDuplicateProjectGuid.GetProjectsInDirectory(string) for the place to modify this.

To assist in testing the dotnet tool version of this tool there is a batch file in build\Update-Package.bat that will attempt to clean up your NuGet Package Cache (in Windows) and re-install the tool as a local tool.

Contributing

Pull requests and bug reports are welcomed so long as they are MIT Licensed.

License

This tool is MIT Licensed.

Third Party Licenses

This project uses other open source contributions see LICENSES.md for a comprehensive listing.