[](https://crates.io/crates/solp)
[](https://crates.io/crates/solv)
[](https://github.com/aegoroff/solv/actions/workflows/ci.yml)
[](https://codecov.io/gh/aegoroff/solv)
[](https://github.com/XAMPPRocky/tokei)
[](https://blog.rust-lang.org/2025/06/26/Rust-1.88.0/)
# solv
Microsoft Visual Studio **SOL**ution **V**alidation console tool and parsing library written in Rust.
The repository contains two crates:
- [`solv`](https://crates.io/crates/solv) — the command-line tool that validates and analyzes
Visual Studio solution (`.sln`) files.
- [`solp`](https://crates.io/crates/solp) — the underlying parsing library that `solv` is built on.
It can be used independently to parse `.sln` files from your own Rust code.
## Features
- Validate Visual Studio solutions and detect common problems
(missing projects, duplicates, invalid configurations, dangling project references, etc.).
- Show detailed information about solutions and their projects.
- Inspect NuGet packages referenced by a solution and find version mismatches.
- Convert a solution to JSON for further processing.
- Scan a single `.sln` file, read from standard input, or recursively scan a directory.
- Generate shell auto-completion scripts.
## Install the pre-compiled binary
**homebrew** (only on macOS and Linux for now):
Add my tap (do it once):
```sh
brew tap aegoroff/tap
```
And then install solv:
```sh
brew install solv
```
Update solv if already installed:
```sh
brew upgrade solv
```
**scoop**:
```sh
scoop bucket add aegoroff https://github.com/aegoroff/scoop-bucket.git
scoop install solv
```
**AUR (Arch Linux User Repository)**:
install binary package:
```sh
yay -S solv-bin
```
or if yay reports that package not found force updating repo info
```sh
yay -Syyu solv-bin
```
install using cargo so builiding on target machine:
```sh
yay -S solv
```
or if yay reports that package not found force updating repo info
```sh
yay -Syyu solv
```
**manually**:
Download the pre-compiled binaries from the [releases](https://github.com/aegoroff/solv/releases) and
copy to the desired location. RPM and DEB packages are available to install under RedHat or Debian based Linux distros.
**install deb package on Arch Linux**:
1. Install [debtap](https://github.com/helixarch/debtap) from AUR using yay:
```sh
yay -S debtap
```
2. Create equivalent package using debtap:
```sh
sudo debtap -u
debtap solv_x.x.x_amd64.deb
```
3. Install using pacman:
```sh
sudo pacman -U solv-x.x.x-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
```
## Install from source
With a recent Rust toolchain installed you can build and install `solv` from
[crates.io](https://crates.io/crates/solv):
```sh
cargo install solv
```
## Usage
`solv` is a subcommand-based CLI. Run `solv --help` to see a list of subcommands,
or `solv <subcommand> --help` for details on a specific one.
```
solv <SUBCOMMAND> [OPTIONS] [PATH]
```
Available subcommands:
| `validate` | `va` | Validates solutions within a directory or a single file |
| `validate fix` | | Fix redundant project references in project files |
| `info` | `i` | Show information about found solutions (projects, configurations, versions, ...) |
| `nuget` | `nu` | Show NuGet packages used in solutions and detect version mismatches |
| `json` | `j` | Convert solution(s) into JSON |
| `completion` | | Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell |
| `bugreport` | | Collect information about the system and environment for bug reports |
Common options accepted by `validate`, `validate fix`, `info`, `nuget` and `json`:
| `-e, --ext <EXTENSION>` | Visual Studio solution extension (default: `sln`) |
| `-r, --recursively` | Scan the directory recursively (default: `false`) |
| `--showerrors` | Output solution parsing errors while scanning directories (default: `false`) |
| `-t, --time` | Show scanning time when scanning a directory (default: `false`) |
The `PATH` argument can be either a path to a single `.sln` file or to a
directory. For the `info` and `json` subcommands, if `PATH` is omitted the
solution is read from standard input.
### Examples
Validate a single solution file:
```sh
solv validate path/to/MySolution.sln
```
Recursively validate all solutions in a directory, showing only the ones with problems:
```sh
solv validate -r -p path/to/sources
```
Show information about a solution:
```sh
solv info path/to/MySolution.sln
```
Find NuGet package version mismatches and fail (non-zero exit code) if any are found:
```sh
solv nuget -r -m -f path/to/sources
```
Fix redundant project references recursively in a directory:
```sh
solv validate fix -r path/to/sources
```
Convert a solution to pretty-printed JSON:
```sh
solv json -p path/to/MySolution.sln
```
Read a solution from standard input and convert it to JSON:
```sh
Generate a shell completion script (example for `bash`):
```sh
solv completion bash > /etc/bash_completion.d/solv
```