How to reference TFS item within multiple projects

Question

I have a C# solution I created within Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate that contains multiple projects that make use of the same structures, classes, and enumerated types. I have created a .cs file that contains all of these items, but at the moment I have to make a duplicate of this file for each project. This is obviously less than ideal because I have to remember to update each copy of the file should I make a change or addition.

Is there are way I can have all of the projects reference just one actual copy of this file, so that I only have to update it once and all of the other projects can see this update? A colleague of mine told me it was possible to make some sort of "symbolic" reference in TFS, but since I don't really know what the name of this feature is I don't know how to research it further.

This question has answers that suggest either creating a class library or using "Add as link" when adding an existing item. I suppose I can do this in Visual Studio when not using TFS, but I have posed this as a TFS-specific question. Will this "add as link" option work when TFS is in use or do I have to do something in TFS to get it to honor the link reference?

Answer 1

"Add link" option would definitely work with TFS. You dont have to do anything specific for that. "Add Link" is project specific and it will add a new entry to your project file specifying the location of your .CS file. As long as the file is available in the particular location during server build, there is nothing to worry. Make sure that the Add link makes a relative path to the file and not absolute.

In my company, we have multiple projects within a solution and we share a single "Assemblyversion.cs" for all the projects so that I dont need to write version info in multiple files. We have made use of Add Link and it works great!