including_submodules.rst

Including Submodules

When generating projects, Protobuild loads all of the project definitions recursively. That is, it not only loads project definitions from your module's Build\Projects folder, but also projects from any submodules that are present.

Note

It is recommended that you use :doc:`package_management_protobuild` instead of this process.

Adding a submodule

For example, if you have the following project structure that is version controlled by Git:

* Build
  * Projects
    * MyProject.definition
  * Module.xml
* MyProject
  * Program.cs
* Protobuild.exe

If you want to add MonoGame as a submodule so that you can reference the MonoGame framework, all you need to do is (in the root of your module):

$ git submodule add https://github.com/mono/MonoGame.git MonoGame

After this command runs you'll end up with:

* Build
  * Projects
    * MyProject.definition
  * Module.xml
* MonoGame
  * ...
* MyProject
  * Program.cs
* Protobuild.exe

You can now reference MonoGame by adding:

<Reference Include="MonoGame.Framework" />

in your project definition.

Recursive behaviour

When you run Protobuild in your module, it will be recursively executed in submodules with the same arguments. That is in the example above, if you run "Protobuild.exe --generate Windows" in your module, then "Protobuild.exe --generate Windows" will be called in the MonoGame submodule (and so-on so-forth for it's submodules).

This ensures that all the project files are available when resyncing or generating your module.