windows - Generate Solution with dependencies for building VS 2010 with hundreds of projects -

we have few hundred visual studio project files need assemble solution building. have custom ruby script, uses rake, this. fragile, , allows few visual studio macros ( $(targetdir),$(targetname), etc...) through, , failing on rest. plus grammar of ruby rubs me perl: wrong way.

so question is, given directory there tool recursively find all .vcxproj , .csproj files , generate solution file dependencies? when 'with dependencies' means projects need built before others. found other posts here on stack overflow pointed tool generates solution files: doesn't generate dependencies. therefore without dependencies solution creation tool useless. know of this?

if not solution file, know of emit dependency list?

p.s. , before asks: creating solution file manually out of question. have way many project files.

so question is, given directory there tool recursively find all .vcxproj , .csproj files , generate solution file dependencies?

no.

what you're asking reasonable; approach problem quite rational. unfortunately, tools haven't kept you. (we had same problem.)

you're going have script yourself, or otherwise customize tools. that's did. successful approaches i've seen include:

1. generate *.vcproj/*.sln "reference project definitions", using tools cmake, qmake, scons, or gyp. our main system sits on scons, our custom python code navigate these dependencies, generate solutions based on projects (spidering dependencies). default, generate "complete" solution each project (including required supporting projects), plus "master projects" solution. works well. but, custom work took effort, , extended scons describe our projects (but rely on scons generation of *.sln , *.vcproj).

2. write custom tool "find" these dependencies parsing *.vcproj files in workspace. work, can done. files can "tricky" navigate, might fine "good enough" solution uses guids hash keys generate dependencies.

i totally agree you: type of stuff (project dependencies) prohibitively difficult maintain manually when move beyond "simple" (e.g., many dozens of projects, yes, have hundreds).

sorry. msvs pretty ide (intended iterative development), , terrible build configuration management system, , not designed we're talking about.

because care sanity , everlasting soul, please please please not attempt write custom solution in msbuild.