Moving XML comments to a separate file

c#, documentation, visual-studio-2010, xml, xml-comments

Solution

You can use the `<include file='...' path='...'>` tag to refer to external comments. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9h8dy30z.aspx.

I do not know of any tool that will move the comments in existing source file to an external comment file.

Problem

I love XML comments. However, with everything collapsed, every two lines looks like: ``` [/// summary ...] public void CreateUser(string username, string password)[...] ``` Multiply this by tens or hundreds of methods, and the resulting collapsed code is hard to sift through. Can I move these comments to a separate XML file, and still have Visual Studio recognize the association so that they still show up in the Intellisense? If so, how do I make that association? And I'm also using SandCastle to generate documentation based on these comments, so the association will have to be recognized by SandCastle as well.

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