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T4 Import Directive

  • Article

Applies to: yesVisual Studio noVisual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

In the code blocks of a Visual Studio T4 text template, the import directive allows you to refer to elements in another namespace without providing a fully qualified name. It is the equivalent of using in C# or imports in Visual Basic.

For a general overview of writing T4 text templates, see Writing a T4 Text Template.

Using the Import Directive

<#@ import namespace="namespace" #>

In this example, template code can omit an explicit namespace for members of System.IO:

<#@ import namespace="System.IO" #>
<#
   string fileContent = File.ReadAllText("C:\x.txt"); // System.IO.File
#>
The file contains: <#=  fileContent #>

Standard Imports

The following namespace is imported automatically, so that you do not need to write an import directive for it:

  • System

    In addition, if you use a custom directive, the directive processor might import some namespaces automatically.

    For example, if you write templates for a domain-specific language (DSL), you do not need to write import directives for the following namespaces:

  • Microsoft.VisualStudio.Modeling

  • Your DSL's namespace

See also