Questions regarding ref folder in publish output

[leak]

What is the point of the refs folder in publish output when targeting full framework only (net46)?

Why is the main applications exe file present as a copy in the refs folder?

How does preserveCompilationContext interact with the refs folder? Is it only relevant for core applications that contain MVC views? If I don't target core and have no MVC views (due to SPA) can i ommit this flag?

Read through various issues but couldn't really get definitive answers, so it would be great if someone could shed a bit more light on this subject.

[TheRealPiotrP]

/cc @pakrym

[leak]

Anyone?

[drewnoakes]

Wondering the same thing.

If I set <PreserveCompilationContext> to false in the VS2017 .csproj file, will it impact compilation performance? Is this data somehow useful for caching, or is it completely redundant.

I'm trying to build docker images, and this folder doubles the space required for the image.

EDIT Actually, removing <PreserveCompilationContext> doesn't help. You have to explicitly set it to false.

[dasMulli]

There has been some discussion on this issue: https://github.com/aspnet/websdk/issues/123

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