MSBuild Update property in csproj - msbuild

Question

I have been trying to update the ApplicationVersion property in my csproj file.witch works fine; i have added a Target that runs an custom task to extract the AssemblyFileVersion from my assemblyinfo.cs; this works there is no doubt about that.
But then when i want to use my updated ApplicationVersion to determan where to put my newly build files, i get the default value set in the property.
<PropertyGroup>
...
<ApplicationVersion>1.0.0.0</ApplicationVersion>
...
</PropertyGroup>
<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' ">
<PlatformTarget>AnyCPU</PlatformTarget>
<DebugSymbols>true</DebugSymbols>
<DebugType>full</DebugType>
<Optimize>false</Optimize>
<OutputPath>..\media-converter-BUILD\debug\$(ApplicationVersion)\</OutputPath>
<DefineConstants>DEBUG;TRACE</DefineConstants>
<ErrorReport>prompt</ErrorReport>
<WarningLevel>4</WarningLevel>
<DocumentationFile>..\media-converter-BUILD\debug\$(ApplicationVersion)\MediaConverter.XML</DocumentationFile>
</PropertyGroup>
My Targets
<UsingTask AssemblyFile="GetAssemblyFileVersion.dll" TaskName="GetAssemblyFileVersion.GetAssemblyFileVersion" />
<Target Name="MainAfterCompile">
<CallTarget Targets="AfterCompile" />
<CallTarget Targets="VerifyParam" />
</Target>
<Target Name="AfterCompile">
<GetAssemblyFileVersion strFilePathAssemblyInfo="Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs">
<Output TaskParameter="strAssemblyFileVersion" PropertyName="ApplicationVersionModded" />
</GetAssemblyFileVersion>
<PropertyGroup>
<ApplicationVersion>$(ApplicationVersionModded)</ApplicationVersion>
</PropertyGroup>
</Target>
<Target Name="VerifyParam">
<Message Text="New $(ApplicationVersionModded)" Importance="high"/>
<Message Text="Old Updated $(ApplicationVersion)" Importance="high"/>
</Target>
the GetAssemblyFileVersion.dll i more or less stole from some post i found on the internet, just can't find it again, so i can't add a link, sorry.
My theory on why it does not work is that the transforms and parameters in PropertyGroups are rendered before both InitailTagets and DefaultTargets is run. And there for will my plan never work
but if anyone knows of a way to make it work, i will be grateful to here it

Answer 1

My theory on why it does not work is that the transforms and parameters in PropertyGroups are rendered before both InitailTagets and DefaultTargets is run indeed, that's how the evaluation order works: msbuild evaluates global properties in the first pass of the file, you define OutputPath, that is used by the Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets file to derive OutDir/BaseIntermediateOutputPath/.... Then in another pass your targets run and update the version number, but there isn't another pass which evaluates the global OutputPath property again.
You can however override the value of OutputPath and derived paths in a Target, and it will take effect, you just have to take care of running it early in the build so that other targets use the updated version. This does the trick:
<Target Name="GetApplicationVersion">
<GetAssemblyFileVersion strFilePathAssemblyInfo="Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs">
<Output TaskParameter="strAssemblyFileVersion" PropertyName="ApplicationVersion" />
</GetAssemblyFileVersion>
</Target>
<Target Name="SetOutputPaths" DependsOnTargets="GetApplicationVersion"
BeforeTargets="PrepareForBuild">
<PropertyGroup>
<OutputPath>bin\$(Configuration)\$(ApplicationVersion)\</OutputPath>
<OutDir>$(OutputPath)</OutDir>
</PropertyGroup>
<Message Text="Set OutDir to $(OutDir)" Importance="high" />
</Target>
Another way to deal with this is doing things the other way around: define the application version as a global msbuild property, then use it to define OutputPath and to update the number in AssemblyVersion.cs before it is compiled.