C# conditional compilation if assembly exists

Question

I have a project with a reference that may or may not exist. I have code that uses that reference and I\'d like to compile it only if the assembly exists. I\'m thinking some

Answer 1

Maybe do it with a condition inside MSBUILD;

It would look something like it

     $(DefineConstants);DLLEXISTS

and should go quite far down in your .csproj file.

This reads, roughly, as "redefine the constants by appending DLLEXISTS, if my.dll exists"

Now you should be able to do

#if DLLEXISTS
    // your stuff here
#endif

You might need to fiddle around with the EXISTS expression to find an appropriate relative path.