I use the following to get a list of project files that need to be compiled. Each project is stored in a subdirectory of the projects directory.
<ItemGroup>
<dprs Include="c:\projects\**\*.dpr" />
</ItemGroup>
Is there a task that I can use to extract to extract the directory that each project file is in? I know I can write my own task to do this but I was hoping that one already exists and that I simply have not found it yet.
If I understand the question correctly, you shouldn't need a task - you can do this with well-known meta data. Does this do the trick?
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" ToolsVersion="3.5">
<ItemGroup>
<dprs Include="c:\projects\**\*.dpr" />
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="Default">
<CreateItem Include="%(dprs.RelativeDir)">
<Output ItemName="_ProjectFileLocations" TaskParameter="Include" />
</CreateItem>
<Message Text="#(_ProjectFileLocations->'%(FullPath)', '%0D%0A')" />
</Target>
</Project>
From the tests I ran, it shouldn't list a directory twice in the new item group.
Related
So here's what I want to do:
I want a build script that will xcopy deploy build outputs for a legacy winform app to a given directory. I want to specify a list of files to not overwrite (some config files).
I would rather have the list of files to not overwrite be passed as a parameter than hard code them.
This seems to be really unexpectedly hard. Here's what I have so far:
<!-- A property that is passed a semicolon delimited list of file names -->
<PropertyGroup>
<ProtectedFiles/>
</PropertyGroup>
<--! An ItemGroup to pick up the files>
<ItemGroup>
<FilesToDelete Include=$(DeploymentTargetFolder)\*.* Exclude="#(ProtectedFiles->'$(DeployTargetFolder)\%(identity)')"
<ItemGroup/>
<--! the delete isn't working, so I will stop just with that to keep the code brief -->
<Delete Files="#(FilesToDelete)"/>
The delete just ignores the exclude files and deletes everything
Is there a better way to do this? It doesn't seem too crazy -- I just want to
Delete all files from the target directory, except for the config files
Copy all of the files from the build outputs to the target directory, without overwriting the config files.
The first problem with your particular markup appears to confuse MsBuild $(properties) with MsBuild %(items) and MsBuild #(itemgroups).
ProtectedFiles is a property:
<!-- A property that is passed a semicolon delimited list of file names -->
<PropertyGroup>
<ProtectedFiles/>
</PropertyGroup>
But it's being treated as an Item and wouldn't have any %item.metadata:
<--! An ItemGroup to pick up the files>
<ItemGroup>
<FilesToDelete Include=$(DeploymentTargetFolder)\*.* Exclude="#(ProtectedFiles->'$(DeployTargetFolder)\%(identity)')"
<ItemGroup/>
Save the following markup locally as "foo.xml", then call "msbuild.exe foo.xml" and observe the output:
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" DefaultTargets="foo" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<FilesProp>FileA.txt;FileB.txt</FilesProp>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<ProtectedFiles Include="FileA.txt" />
<ProtectedFiles Include="FileA.txt" />
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="foo">
<Message Importance="high" Text="ProtectedFiles ItemGroup: #(ProtectedFiles)" />
<Message Importance="high" Text="ProtectedFiles ItemGroup transform: #(ProtectedFiles->'%(Identity)')" />
<Message Importance="high" Text="FilesProp Property: $(FilesProp)" />
<Message Importance="high" Text="FilesProp Property: #(FilesProp->'%(FilesProp.Identity)')" />
</Target>
</Project>
Will yield the following output:
foo:
ProtectedFiles ItemGroup: FileA.txt;FileA.txt
ProtectedFiles ItemGroup transform: FileA.txt;FileA.txt
FilesProp Property: FileA.txt;FileB.txt
FilesProp Property:
If you're unable to change the design and need to convert a Property comprising a semi-colon delimited list of file paths, use the MsBuild <CreateItem /> task.
Add this markup to foo.xml occurring after the Foo target, then invoke msbuild again, but using the "bar" target (e.g. msbuild.exe foo.xml /t:bar)
<Target Name="bar">
<CreateItem Include="$(FilesProp)">
<Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="TheFiles"/>
</CreateItem>
<Message Text="TheFiles ItemGroup: #(TheFiles)" Importance="high" />
<Message Text="Output each item: %(TheFiles.Identity)" Importance="high" />
</Target>
Will yield the following output:
bar:
TheFiles ItemGroup: FileA.txt;FileB.txt
Output each item: FileA.txt
Output each item: FileB.txt
Next you should rethink some of your assumptions. I don't believe the file extension should be the determining factor when deciding which files to update, rather you should rely on MsBuild's ability to build tasks incrementally allowing it to perform a task only if the inputs are newer than the outputs. You can do this by using an MsBuild <Copy /> task configured to skip unchanged files.
Add this markup to the above Xml file, then modify the $(SourceFolder) and $(TargetFolder) to point to a source folder you'd like to copy recursively, and a destination folder to place the files. Build using "msbuild.exe foo.xml /t:Deployment" and observe the output.
<Target Name="Deployment">
<PropertyGroup>
<SourceFolder>c:\sourcefolder\</SourceFolder>
<TargetFolder>c:\destinationfolder\</TargetFolder>
</PropertyGroup>
<CreateItem Include="$(SourceFolder)\**\*.*">
<Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="FilesToCopy" />
</CreateItem>
<Copy SourceFiles="#(FilesToCopy)" DestinationFolder="$(TargetFolder)%(RecursiveDir)" SkipUnchangedFiles="true" />
</Target>
Without modifying any of the source files, run the command again and note that no files were copied.
Modify a file in the source folder, then run the command again. Notice that only the updated files were copied?
I hope this gets you on the right track.
There seems to be an already existing post, similar to this. Please check this Trying to exclude certain extensions doing a recursive copy (MSBuild)
I want to execute an msbuild project which uses batching to determine that one or more csproj projects have been freshly-built, and therefore require fresh nuget packaging. The script I've made so far seems like a reasonable start, but it the incremental-build mechanism isn't working. The MainBuild target executes every time, no matter what.
Here is what I have:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" DefaultTargets="MainBuild" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)'=='' ">Debug</Configuration>
<Content>content\plugins\</Content>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<Nuspec Include="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\plugins\*\*.nuspec" />
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="MainBuild"
Inputs="%(Nuspec.RootDir)%(Nuspec.Directory)bin\$(Configuration)\*.dll"
Outputs="%(Nuspec.RootDir)%(Nuspec.Directory)%(FileName).pkg" >
<ItemGroup>
<Inputs Include="%(Nuspec.RootDir)%(Nuspec.Directory)bin\$(Configuration)\*.dll" />
<Outputs Include="%(Nuspec.RootDir)%(Nuspec.Directory)%(FileName).pkg" />
</ItemGroup>
<Message Text="INPUTS: %(Inputs.FullPath)" />
<Message Text="OUTPUTS: #(Outputs->'%(FullPath)')" />
<Copy SourceFiles="#(Inputs)" DestinationFiles="#(Outputs->'%(FullPath)')" />
</Target>
</Project>
The Copy task is just a debugging placeholder for calling-out to nuget and creating a new package.
The idea is that if any files in the bin\Debug directory are newer than the corresponding .nuspec file (found two folders above bin\Debug), then the MainBuild target should execute.
Any ideas?
p.s. The Inputs and Outputs attributes of the Target presumably each create an item. I think it strange that the items created can't be referenced inside the target. In the above example, I had to make a target-interna dynamic ItemGroup to re-create the items, just so that I could access them. Is there a way around that?
I read this in the MSBuild Batching documentation
If a task inside of a target uses batching, MSBuild needs to determine
if the inputs and outputs for each batch of items is up-to-date.
Otherwise, the target is executed every time it is hit.
Which may be the cuprit. Try changing your copy target to use batching instead of an ite transform (I don't think using item metadata in an item group satisfies the above requirement).
<Target Name="MainBuild"
Inputs="%(Nuspec.RootDir)%(Nuspec.Directory)bin\$(Configuration)\*.dll"
Outputs="%(Nuspec.RootDir)%(Nuspec.Directory)%(FileName).pkg" >
<ItemGroup>
<Inputs Include="%(Nuspec.RootDir)%(Nuspec.Directory)bin\$(Configuration)\*.dll" />
<Outputs Include="%(Nuspec.RootDir)%(Nuspec.Directory)%(FileName).pkg" />
</ItemGroup>
<Message Text="INPUTS: %(Inputs.FullPath)" />
<Message Text="OUTPUTS: #(Outputs->'%(FullPath)')" />
<Copy SourceFiles="#(Inputs)" DestinationFiles="%(Outputs.FullPath)" />
</Target>
It looks like the number of inputs may be different than the number of outputs (I suspect there is more than one .dll files in the output directory for each project), which will also cause the target to execute.
How to specify additional assembly reference paths for the MSBuild tasks?
I have following script so far, but can't figure out how to specify additional search paths.
<ItemGroup>
<ProjectsToBuild Include="..\Main\Main.sln" />
</ItemGroup>
<!-- The follwing paths should be added to reference search paths for the build tasks -->
<ItemGroup>
<MyAddRefPath Include="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\..\Build\Lib1" />
<MyAddRefPath Include="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\..\Build\Lib2" />
</ItemGroup>
<MSBuild
Projects="#(ProjectsToBuild)"
Properties="Configuration=Debug;OutputPath=$(BuildOutputPath)">
</MSBuild>
UPDATE:
Please show one complete working script which invokes original project, such as an SLN with multiple additional reference paths.
No suggestions on how to improve the project structure please.
I know how to build a good structure, but now it's the task of building an existing piece of crap.
I have finaly figured out how to do it:
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<ItemGroup>
<ProjectsToBuild Include="ConsoleApplication1\ConsoleApplication1.csproj" />
</ItemGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<AdditionalReferencePaths Include="..\Build\ClassLibrary1" />
<AdditionalReferencePaths Include="..\Build\ClassLibrary2" />
</ItemGroup>
<PropertyGroup>
<BuildOutputPath>..\Build\ConsoleApplication1</BuildOutputPath>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="MainBuild">
<PropertyGroup>
<AdditionalReferencePathsProp>#(AdditionalReferencePaths)</AdditionalReferencePathsProp>
</PropertyGroup>
<MSBuild
Projects="ConsoleApplication1\ConsoleApplication1.csproj"
Properties="ReferencePath=$(AdditionalReferencePathsProp);OutputPath=$(BuildOutputPath)"
>
</MSBuild>
</Target>
The property you want to modify is AssemblySearchPaths. See the ResolveAssemblyReference task more information.
<Target Name="AddToSearchPaths">
<CreateProperty Value="x:\path\to\assemblies;$(AssemblySearchPaths)">
<Output PropertyName="AssemblySearchPaths" TaskParameter="Value" />
</CreateProperty>
</Target>
Making use of item groups, as in your example, it would look like:
<Target Name="AddToSearchPaths">
<CreateProperty Value="#(MyAddRefPath);$(AssemblySearchPaths)">
<Output PropertyName="AssemblySearchPaths" TaskParameter="Value" />
</CreateProperty>
</Target>
Looking in %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Microsoft.Common.targets, you can see that the ResolveAssemblyReference Task is executed as part of the ResolveAssemblyReferences target. Thus, you want the newly added target to modify the AssemblySearchPaths property before ResolveAssemblyReferences is executed.
You've stated that you want to be able to modify the assembly search paths without modifying the project files directly. In order to accomplish that requirement you need to set an environment variable that will override the AssemblySearchPaths. With this technique you will need to provide every assembly reference path used by all the projects in the solutions. (Modifying the projects or copies of the projects would be easier. See final comments.)
One technique is to create a batch file that runs your script at sets the environment variable:
set AssemblySearchPaths="C:\Tacos;C:\Burritos;C:\Chalupas"
msbuild whatever.msbuild
Another way is to define a PropertyGroup in your custom msbuild file (otherwise known as the "hook" needed to make this work):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<ItemGroup>
<ProjectsToBuild Include="..\Main\Main.sln" />
</ItemGroup>
<PropertyGroup>
<AssemblySearchPaths>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\..\Build\Lib1;$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\..\Build\Lib2</AssemblySearchPaths>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="Build">
<MSBuild Projects="#(ProjectsToBuild)" Properties="AssemblySearchPaths=$(AssemblySearchPaths);Configuration=Debug;OutputPath=$(OutputPath)" />
</Target>
</Project>
Now if it were me, and for whatever unexplained reason I couldn't modify the project files to include the updated references that I am going to build with, I would make copies of the project files, load them into the IDE, and correct the references in my copies. Synching the projects becomes a simple diff/merge operation which is automatic with modern tools like mercurial (heck I'm sure clearcase could manage it too).
...and remember that you don't need to use a target for this, you can use project-scoped properties or items, as...
<ItemGroup>
<MyAddRefPath Include="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\..\Build\Lib1" />
<MyAddRefPath Include="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\..\Build\Lib2" />
</ItemGroup>
<PropertyGroup>
<MyAddRefPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\..\Build\Lib3</MyAddRefPath>
<!-- add in the property path -->
<AssemblySearchPaths>$(MyAddRefPath);$(AssemblySearchPaths)</AssemblySearchPaths>
<!-- add in the item paths -->
<AssemblySearchPaths>#(MyAddRefPath);$(AssemblySearchPaths)</AssemblySearchPaths>
</PropertyGroup>
...and if you do need to do this in a target to pick up paths from a dynamically populated item group, use inline properties, not the CreateProperty task (if you are not stuck in v2.0)
<Target Name="AddToSearchPaths">
<PropertyGroup>
<!-- add in the item paths -->
<AssemblySearchPaths>#(MyDynamicAddRefPath);$(AssemblySearchPaths)</AssemblySearchPaths>
</PropertyGroup>
</Target>
I'm trying to select a list of test dlls that contain corresponding config files
MyTest.Tests.dll
MyTest.Tests.config
I have to use a createItem as the dlls are not available at the time of the script loading
<CreateItem Include="$(AssemblyFolder)\*.Tests.dll"
Condition="???"
<Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="TestBinariesWithConfig"/>
</CreateItem>
Is there a condition I can use or is this the wrong approach?
Thanks
Mac
EDIT:
ok, to clarify, I need to construct a xUnit.Net project file. I need to do this because I'm running the tests through the xUnit.Console runner via nCover (don't ask!) but the long and short of it is I can only use a project file. The problem I'm having is when I have a test dll with an associated .config file. Without the config file, the test runner will fail.
This means I need to conditionally add an extra attribute (config-file) in the test project file.
The project template file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xunit>
<assemblies>
<!-- SAMPLE <assembly filename="Tests.dll" shadow-copy="false" config-file="Tests.dll.config" /> -->
<!-- #TARGETS# -->
</assemblies>
</xunit>
The FileUpdate task for the test dlls with no config file.
<FileUpdate
Files="$(AssemblyFolder)\$(XUnitProjectFileName)"
Regex="<!-- #TARGETS# -->"
ReplacementText="<!-- #TARGETS# -->%0D%0A<assembly filename='$(AssemblyFolder)\%(TestBinaries.FileName)%(TestBinaries.Extension)' shadow-copy='false' />"
/>
So I need a way to conditionally add the extra attribute in the FileUpdate task depending on whether there is a corresponding config file for the test dll.
You could just use the MSBuild Task output as a source for your CreateItem Task.
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<ItemGroup>
<ProjectReferences Include="*.*proj" />
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="BuildMyProjects">
<MSBuild
Projects="#(ProjectReferences)"
Targets="Build">
<Output
TaskParameter="TargetOutputs"
ItemName="AssembliesBuiltByChildProjects" />
</MSBuild>
</Target>
<Target Name="AddConfigMetadata" DependsOnTargets="BuildMyProjects">
<CreateItem
Include="#(AssembliesBuiltByChildProjects)"
AdditionalMetadata="config-file=%(Identity).config">
<Output
TaskParameter="Include"
ItemName="MySourceItemsWithMetadata" />
</CreateItem>
</Target>
<Target Name="WhatEverYouLikeToDo" DependsOnTargets="AddConfigMetadata">
<Message Text="%(MySourceItemsWithMetadata.config-file)" />
</Target>
</Project>
Your problem discription isn't really clear to me, but your .Tests.dll's should always be available because you should build your project first before testing it. Whenever you've build your project, you can run the CreateItem task. The CreateItem is a good approach to retrieve the .dll's but you don't need a condition for it.
So in your build file you should have something like this:
- Build project/solution
-> .dll's will be created
- Execute CreateItem
- Do something with the Item
With this awnser I'm assuming you're trying to automate your tests?
In MSBuild, I would like to call a task that extracts all the files in all the project in a specific solution and hold these files in a property that can be passed around to other tasks (for processing etc.)
I was thinking something along the lines of:
<ParseSolutionFile SolutionFile="$(TheSolutionFile)">
<Output TaskParameter="FilesFound" ItemName="AllFilesInSolution"/>
</ParseSolutionFile>
<Message Text="Found $(AllFilesInSolution)" />
which would output the list of all files in the projects in the solution and I could use the AllFilesInSolution property as input to other analysis tasks. Is this an already existing task or do I need to build it myself? If I need to build it myself, should the task output an array of strings or of ITaskItems or something else?
I don't know about tasks, but there are already properties that hold all items. Just look in your typical project file and you'll see which collection they're being added to.
Note the properties Content, Compile, Folder... any time you add a file to a project, it gets put in one of the main collections like this:
<ItemGroup>
<Content Include="Default.aspx" />
<Content Include="Web.config" />
</ItemGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<Compile Include="Default.aspx.cs">
<SubType>ASPXCodeBehind</SubType>
<DependentUpon>Default.aspx</DependentUpon>
</Compile>
<Compile Include="Default.aspx.designer.cs">
<DependentUpon>Default.aspx</DependentUpon>
</Compile>
</ItemGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<Folder Include="App_Data\" />
</ItemGroup>
Then you can do stuff like this to put the values from existing properties into your properties (the Condition attribute acts as a filter):
<CreateItem Include="#(Content)" Condition="'%(Extension)' == '.aspx'">
<Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="ViewsContent" />
</CreateItem>
Or you can do it manually (the Include attribute uses the existing property OutputPath, but it indicates a path that inclues all files):
<CreateItem Include="$(OutputPath)\**\*">
<Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="OutputFiles" />
</CreateItem>
There are more details in the MSDN MSBuild documentation that I read when I was mucking with custom build tasks and stuff that was very helpful. Go read up on the CreateItem task and you'll be able to make more sense out of what I posted here. It's really easy to pick up on.
I use the following for solutions with SSRS projects (which dont build under TFS w/o vs installed on the build box). Basically we require that the RDLs be bundled into a build output so we can mark a build for release.
<Target Name="CopyArtifactstoDropLocation">
<CreateItem Include="$(SolutionRoot)\**\*.*">
<Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="YourFilesToCopy" />
</CreateItem>
<Copy
SourceFiles="#(YourFilesToCopy)"
DestinationFiles="#(YourFilesToCopy->'$(DropLocation)\$(BuildNumber)\Release\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)')" />
</Target>
Just replace the usage of the Copy Task with whatever you need to do with your bundle. Granted this is going to get everything in your solution root, but if your using TFS then you should only have buildable artifacts.