How to Add DLLs to a WSP SharePoint Solution

This is probably well documented somewhere, but I couldn't find it within 10 minutes, so I decided to blog it.

If you have a sharepoint wsp, and you want it to deploy additional dlls to a site collection's bin directory when it is deployed, then you can add a line to your cab.ddf and your manifest.xml files to make this happen. In the cab.ddf, you can add a line like

pathToDll\TheDll.dll TheDll.dll

This will put the dll in your wsp cab file. Then in your manifest.xml file, add a new assembly entry in assemblies like

<Assembly DeploymentTarget="WebApplication" Location="TheDll.dll" />

Just to clarify, I'll put examples of each file.

 

---cab.ddf---

; This is the file that you pass to makecab utility, as in "makecab /f cab.ddf"

.OPTION EXPLICIT ; Generate errors

.Set CabinetNameTemplate=SPInstaller.wsp

.Set DiskDirectoryTemplate=CDRom ; all cabinets go in a single directory

.Set CompressionType=MSZIP ; all files compressed in cabinet files

.Set UniqueFiles="ON"

.Set Cabinet=on

.Set DiskDirectory1=Package

 

Solution\manifest.xml manifest.xml

TEMPLATE\FEATURES\MyFeature\feature.xml MyFeature\feature.xml

TEMPLATE\FEATURES\MyFeature\elements.xml MyFeature\elements.xml

 

TEMPLATE\FEATURES\MyFeature\dwp\MyWebPart.webpart FEATURES\ArrowWebParts\dwp\MyWebPart.webpart

 

; this is the important part for this article

; both of the dlls are stuffed into the wsp

bin\Release\MyFeature.dll MyFeature.dll

bin\Release\TheDll.dll TheDll.dll

 

 

----manifest.xml---

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<Solution SolutionId="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"

xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/" >

<FeatureManifests>

<FeatureManifest Location="MyFeature\feature.xml"/>

</FeatureManifests>

<TemplateFiles>

<TemplateFile Location="FEATURES\MyFeature\dwp\MyWebPart.webpart"/>

</TemplateFiles>

<Assemblies>

<!-- choose DeploymentTarget="WebApplication" -->

<Assembly DeploymentTarget="WebApplication" Location="MyFeature.dll">

<SafeControls>

<SafeControl Assembly="MyFeature" Namespace="MyWebParts" TypeName="*" Safe="True"/>

</SafeControls>

</Assembly>

<!-- The other dll is added with another assembly entry -->

<Assembly DeploymentTarget="WebApplication" Location="TheDll.dll" />

</Assemblies>

<CodeAccessSecurity>

<PolicyItem>

<PermissionSet class="NamedPermissionSet" version="1" Description="Permissions for WRWebParts">

<IPermission class="AspNetHostingPermission" version="1" Level="Minimal" />

<IPermission class="SecurityPermission" version="1" Flags="Execution" />

<IPermission class="WebPartPermission" version="1" Connections="True" />

<IPermission class="System.Security.Permissions.FileIOPermission, mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" version="1" Unrestricted="true" />

</PermissionSet>

<Assemblies>

<Assembly Name="ArrowWebParts"/>

</Assemblies>

</PolicyItem>

</CodeAccessSecurity>

</Solution>

Comments

[Sowmya Deenadayal]

Also, add the safe control entry in solutionConfig.xml