[wix-users] File Path Issue in Light Command

[Rob Mensching]

Use bind paths. They are great even if Votive doesn't support them natively.

Short replies here. Complete answers here: https://www.firegiant.com/services/

-----Original Message-----
From: wix-users <wix-users-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of Edwin Castro via wix-users
Sent: Monday, December 16, 2019 8:23 AM
To: Ven H <venh.123 at gmail.com>
Cc: Edwin Castro <egcastr at gmail.com>; WiX Toolset Users Mailing List <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org>
Subject: Re: [wix-users] File Path Issue in Light Command

I expect the blogs / forums you've read are describing a specific scenario and extrapolating general conclusions without proper evidence, but I can't really say anything definitive about them because I don't know what they are.

I personally do not consider the current behavior to be a bug. In fact, I find it very consistent. In all scenarios candle and light use the current working directory to resolve relative paths. I don't consider this behavior to be odd since effectively all compilers and linkers follow this convention. This allows you to specify paths on the command line relative to the current directory as expected.

All Visual Studio projects I am aware of always construct full paths for files and tools (compilers, linkers, etc.) are executed in the project directory. All relative paths in the .wixproj file are actually resolved by MSBuild to the project directory and tools are executed in the project directory. To simulate this behavior manually, or with a non-msbuild script, you'd need to ensure the current working directory when executing candle and light is the project directory and give paths relative to the project directory.

--
Edwin G. Castro


On Mon, Dec 16, 2019 at 5:22 AM Ven H <venh.123 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks a lot for the prompt response, Edwin. Ideally, the path of a 
> file referred in WXS should be relative to the WXS file and not the 
> .wixproj file, right? This is what I read in many blogs / forums. So, 
> is this a bug of the WiX Visual Studio template or target or something?
>
> On Mon, Dec 16, 2019 at 6:19 PM Edwin Castro <egcastr at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> My guess is that candle/light are run from the project directory 
>> within Visual Studio. When candle/light are run directly they must be 
>> run from the Content directory. To replicate the behavior seen in 
>> Visual Studio try running candle/light from the project directory 
>> instead of the Content directory.
>>
>> --
>> Edwin G. Castro
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 02:27 Ven H via wix-users < 
>> wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I have a WiX Setup Project in Visual Studio. It has a folder called 
>>> Content. This folder has all the WXS files, including the Product, 
>>> LicenseAgreement etc. It also has the License.rtf file. The 
>>> LicenseAgreement.wxs has a reference to License.rtf. Even though 
>>> both are inside Content folder, Visual Studio throws error (in light 
>>> command) if I don't give the path to License.rtf as 
>>> Content\License.rtf. I am not able to understand this.
>>>
>>> If I run it directly (not from Visual Studio) using WiX Commands 
>>> like Candle, Light etc, it works if the path is simply "License.rtf" 
>>> and not "Content\License.rtf". This is weird.
>>>
>>> In short, LicenseAgreement.wxs is inside Content folder and so is 
>>> License.rtf.
>>>
>>> But for this to work from Visual Studio, I need to specify 
>>> "Content\License.rtf" as path in LicenseAgreement.wxs
>>>
>>> But using direct WiX command, I need to specify "License.rtf" as 
>>> path in LicenseAgreement.wxs.
>>>
>>> Can anyone please help me with this?
>>>
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>>> http://www.firegiant.com/
>>>
>>

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