Solution and Project Objects

The Solution object represents the currently loaded solution. The individual projects within the solution are available via Project objects returned within the Solution.Projects collection. Items within a project are accessed in a similar fashion through the Project.ProjectItems collection.

As you can see from Figure 14.1, this hierarchy exactly mirrors the solution/project hierarchy that we first discussed in Chapter 4, “Solutions and Projects.”

FIGURE 14.1 Mapping the solution/project hierarchy.

There are some mismatches here (solution folders, for instance, are treated as projects), but for the most part, the object model tree closely resembles the solution project tree that you are used to.

The Solution object and members enable you to interact with the current solution to perform common tasks such as these:

Determining the number of projects in the solution (Count property)

Adding a project to the solution based on a project file (AddFromFile method)

Creating a new solution or closing the current one (Create and Close methods)

Saving the solution (SaveAs method)

Removing a project from the solution (Remove method)

You can directly retrieve a reference to any of the projects within the currently loaded solution by iterating over the Solution.Projects collection. As an example of interacting with the Solution and Project objects, this C# code snippet removes the first project from the current solution.

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Solution solution = _applicationObject.Solution;
Project project = solution.Projects.Item(0) as Project;

if (project.Saved)
{
   solution.Remove(project);
}
else
{
   //
}

Table 14.3 provides the combined list of the most commonly used properties and methods implemented by the Solution objects.

TABLE 14.3 Primary Solution/Solution2/Solution3 Type Members