Pasted

Text files, baked into the binary.

A source generator that turns text files into string constants at compile time, for source generators and AOT binaries that have no assembly directory to read from at runtime.

dotnet add package Pasted

Why?

A source generator cannot read a file from disk while it is running, and an AOT binary has no assembly directory to read from at runtime. Pasted puts the file contents into the compilation as constants, so the data is there when the code runs.

Given test.txt containing test, the generator emits,

namespace Pasted;

/// <summary>
/// Compiled embedded files
/// </summary>
internal static partial class EmbeddedFiles
{
    /// <summary>
    /// test.txt embedded file
    /// </summary>
    public const string test = @"test";
}

Because the value is a compile-time constant it can be used inside another source generator, which is how Cutout embeds its own templates.

What it does not do

• It only embeds text. Binary files are not supported
• Files are not embedded unless embed = true is set for them in .editorconfig
• It does not watch files. Changing an embedded file requires a rebuild

See also

• Getting Started - wire up the generator and the .editorconfig options