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How to select which files are copied?

This page details operations that currently apply only to Windows builds

Sometimes, you want to build a minimal package for one of these reasons:

  • Reduce your package size
  • Remove attacking surface of your software by limiting its features
  • Reduce the application loading time by making the plugins scan faster.
  • Speed up build times: Fastest copies are those that do not occur.
  • Just because you do not need that plugin, it is cleaner not to copy it.

Exclude some files from copy

In your csproj, you can exclude some of the files by including them in a VlcWindowsX64ExcludeFiles item group. That exclusion will apply to the Windows x64 build of libvlc.

There is not such inclusion/exclusion mechanism for Android because libvlc is built as one monolithic library on this platform.

Some examples:

<ItemGroup>
  <!-- You can exclude plugin-by-plugin: -->
  <VlcWindowsX64ExcludeFiles Include="plugins\gui\libqt_plugin.dll" />

  <!-- You can exclude a whole folder. Notice how the wildcard is mandatory when doing exclude on folders -->
  <VlcWindowsX64ExcludeFiles Include="plugins\lua\%2A" />

  <!-- You can exclude with wildcards -->
  <VlcWindowsX64ExcludeFiles Include="plugins\%2A\%2Adummy%2A" />

  <!-- You can exclude the same files for Windows x86 -->
  <VlcWindowsX86ExcludeFiles Include="@(VlcWindowsX64ExcludeFiles)" />
</ItemGroup>

You can merge several VlcWindowsX64ExcludeFiles definitions into one with semicolons. This is equivalent to the declarations above

<ItemGroup>
  <VlcWindowsX64ExcludeFiles Include="plugins\gui\libqt_plugin.dll;plugins\lua\%2A;plugins\%2A\%2Adummy%2A" />
  <VlcWindowsX86ExcludeFiles Include="@(VlcWindowsX64ExcludeFiles)" />
</ItemGroup>

A few things to note:

  • You may use wildcards, but you need to escape them as %2A
  • Always use backslashes (\) rather than forward slashes (/), until this issue is resolved : dotnet/msbuild#1024
  • The syntax may be misleading, but the ...ExcludeFiles item group requires the use of the Include attribute to choose which plugins to exclude. You are really adding string items to a list named "Exclude"

Cherry-pick the files you need

You may also use an inclusive strategy to reach the goals defined above.

The syntax is very similar, here are some examples:

<ItemGroup>
  <!-- Includes the codec folder. Notice how the wildcard is mandatory when doing include on folders -->
  <VlcWindowsX64IncludeFiles Include="plugins\codec\%2A" />

  <!-- You can include plugin-by-plugin -->
  <VlcWindowsX64IncludeFiles Include="plugins\audio_output\libdirectsound_plugin.dll" />

  <!-- You can include with wildcards all in d3d9/d3d11 -->
  <VlcWindowsX64IncludeFiles Include="plugins\d3d%2A\%2A" />

  <!-- You can still exclude things from what you have included -->
  <VlcWindowsX64IncludeFiles Include="plugins\codec\libddummy_plugin.dll" />

  <!-- You can include the same files for Windows x86 -->
  <VlcWindowsX86IncludeFiles Include="@(VlcWindowsX64IncludeFiles)" />
</ItemGroup>

Of course, you can group items with ; as with the exclusive strategy.

Note: This example is really dumb. You should probably include at least libvlccore.dll and libvlc.dll. The default value of VlcWindowsX64IncludeFiles and VlcWindowsX86IncludeFiles is:

libvlc.dll;libvlccore.dll;hrtfs\%2A%2A;lua\%2A%2A;plugins\%2A%2A