GuidSymbol element
Applies to: 
Visual Studio 
Visual 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
The GuidSymbol element contains the GUID of the GUID:ID pair that represents a menu, group, or command. The ID comes from an IDSymbol element in the GuidSymbol element. The GuidSymbol element has a name attribute that provides a friendly name for the GUID, which is contained in the value attribute.
Syntax
<GuidSymbol name="guidMyCommandSet" value="{xxxxxxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}">
<IDSymbol>... </IDSymbol>
<IDSymbol>... </IDSymbol>
</GuidSymbol>
Attributes and elements
The following sections describe attributes, child elements, and parent elements.
Attributes
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| name | Required. Name of the GUID symbol. |
| value | Required. GUID of the GUID symbol. |
Child elements
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
| IDSymbol element | Contains the ID of the GUID:ID pair that represents a menu, group, or command. |
Parent elements
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
| Symbols element | Groups GuidSymbol elements in a .vsct file. |
Remarks
Typically, a .vsct file contains three GuidSymbol elements in its Symbols section, one for the package itself, one for the command set (the collection of menus, groups, and commands that the package makes available), and one for the bitmaps that provide icons for buttons and other visual components. Every IDSymbol element in a given GuidSymbol element must have a unique value.However, IDSymbol elements that have identical values can exist in a package as long as they have different parents.