Difference between Rebuild and Clean + Build in Visual Studio

visual-studio visual-studio-2008 build rebuild
Jim McKeeth picture Jim McKeeth · Aug 8, 2009 · Viewed 81.4k times · Source

What is the difference between just a Rebuild and doing a Clean + Build in Visual Studio 2008? Is Clean + Build different then doing Clean + Rebuild?

Answer

earl picture earl · Aug 8, 2009

Rebuild = Clean + Build (usually)

Notable details:

  1. For a multi-project solution, "rebuild solution" does a "clean" followed by a "build" for each project (possibly in parallel). Whereas a "clean solution" followed by a "build solution" first cleans all projects (possibly in parallel) and then builds all projects (possibly in parallel). This difference in sequencing of events can become significant when inter-project dependencies come into play.

  2. All three actions correspond to MSBuild targets. So a project can override the Rebuild action to do something completely different.

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