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Lack of Custom Tool support for F# Projects
f#

I was working on a IVsSingleFileGenerator to generate code behind files for Xaml so that I can get nice auto generated F# files.

The problem is that Custom Tools apparently are not supported in the F# project type does any one now why? Or better yet does anyone have a work around?

Right now I have an external tool that parses the Xaml file and generates a .g.fs and .fs file that works and by including the Xaml file as a resource then I can compile the whole thing and do Silverlight or WPF apps right (By the way Expression Blend actually handles the Xaml files ok in an FSharp project. Visual Studio on the other hand wont display crap). Now I just want to be able to do this automagically and ran into this problem.

Thanks,

-Patrick

PS. I know the IVsSingleFileGenerator is working since I can generate the files just fine in a C#, VB or J# project.

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The F# project system does not support SFG/custom tools. Since F# does not ship with a CodeDom or ways to generate code, this feature was a low priority and not implemented.

Visual Studio can display Xamls in F# projects (there are a number of recent blogs about using the two together), am curious to know what issues you're seeing.

I imagine you can work around the lack of SFG support just by adding the .g.fs file to the project and adding a menu item to the .xaml to regenerate it (I don't know all the mechanics of SFGs, but doesn't appear to be too deep).

Alternatively, you can define other build logic to avoid the need for SFGs, this is what e.g. the PowerPack FsLex/FsYacc tools do (they define msbuild tasks/targets, and then you just say e.g. "<FsLex Include="foo.fsl" />" and it runs the generator and includes the generated .fs as part of the build step. This also has the advantage (I think) of being completely msbuild-based, which means it works fine even if you're not using VS (I don't think SFGs support that?).

By on 6/14/2010 8:30 AM ()

Thanks Brian, I expected you to answer :). I'll create some build targets then and be on my merry way. Are you guys going to provide SFG/custom tools at some point?

Thanks,

-Patrick

By on 6/14/2010 10:18 AM ()

Are you guys going to provide SFG/custom tools at some point?

Probably, but the future is still unclear, and presumably the next release of VS is a couple years out at least, so it would be a while.

By on 6/14/2010 10:47 AM ()

I'm hoping for a service pack before then :)

By on 6/15/2010 11:20 AM ()

Service packs are more likely to contain 'bug fixes' rather than 'new features', so I wouldn't bet on that for this particular case :)

By on 6/15/2010 11:31 AM ()

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