In my mind i have a process I want todo with TFS, but in reality I dont seem to be able to work out how todo it.
Se we have a small team of developers, we build standard components (DLLS) that we use in lots of bits of software. When we make a change to one (StandardLib) for example we can get a build to generate in TFS, but is there a way in Visual Studio of linking our references to the latest build so we always use the latest version of the DLL, without having to build it locally on our PC's
Any help is much appreciated.
You can update the build definition to create nuget packages for the dll files and publish the nuget packages to a feed. And then use nuget to manage the references in your project. When there is a new version of the dll files, you just need to run update package command to update the reference to the latest version.
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We have a number of .NET Framework projects with a "nuget pack MyProject.csproj" command in the post-build step. We have been using VS2010 (:O I know) until now, and it has been happily spitting out nupkg files.
We recently updated our build tools to the 2019 version (running the new version of varsall.bat before calling msbuild), and the "nuget pack" command now fails:
Error NU5012: Unable to find 'MyProject.dll'. Make sure the project has been built.
What I've tried:
Adding a "nuget spec" step before packing
Upgrading the nuget CLI executable to the latest version
Updating from packages.config to PackageReferences
This allows you to use MSBuild -t:pack. However, two issues:
When running this in the post-build step on my machine, it starts dozens of cmd & MSBuild processes and pegs my CPU.
Our developers are stuck on VS2017 for now, but the 2017 build tools are no longer available for our build server (so we use 2019). The 2017 & 2019 installs put MSBuild in different locations. We could set path variables for all the machines, but that seems brittle.
I'm playing with upgrading one of the projects to the new csproj format, but it is rather involved. Upgrading all of our projects will be an effort all its own, and I'm still exploring the ramifications.
Is there something simple I'm missing which will allow this to work without large modifications?
Error NU5012: Unable to find 'MyProject.dll'. Make sure the project
has been built.
This message indicates that the nuget.exe can't find the output assembly. So you must make sure the assembly is created successfully.
And one point you need to take care, normally we use command like nuget pack foo.csproj -Properties Configuration=Release to pack the assembly built in release mode. If you use command like nuget pack xx.csproj in post-build-event, no matter which configuration you use msbuild to build the project, nuget will always try to find the assembly in ProjectDir/bin/debug.
So when you deploy the project to remote server without bin and obj folders, if you try to use command like msbuild xx.csproj /p:Configuration=Release, the build is in release mode while nuget.exe will search the bin\debug instead of expected bin\release. You should check if you're in same situation.
Why does NuGet pack break with VS2019 build tools?
This issue is not about the build tools package. Since the error message you got came from nuget. Msbuild just help call the nuget.exe, and the cause of the issue is nuget.exe can't find the needed assembly by one specific path. Please check if the path in the error message is right, and then check if the assembly is in that path.
I also ran into the same issue during our TFS upgrade to Azure Devops. The new Nuget task doesn't have the switch for -Build. The fields in the Nuget task screen for Pack also doesn't allow you to add this switch, that's why it's complaining about not finding the dll or the output of the build. I modified the nugetpack.js file on the agent's task folder to test the theory and now the pack options build successfully.
This is the line I added to the js file (towards the bottom of the page):
nugetTool.arg("-Build");
what would be nice is to have this option represented as check box to cover if there is use case to call Nuget pack without -Build switch
I have a dll project which I need to install into the GAC, on our Production machines.
(I wish I didn't have to use the GAC but SSIS insists)
gacutil.exe is not available on the target machines and using "Enterprise.Services" from PowerShell does not work (I don't know why)
My understanding is I should created a msi installer project.
However after installing the Setup and Deploy Extension to Visual Studio (2015 soon to be 2017), I discovered those projects cannot be built by our Build Server because it uses MSBuild, and MSBuild can't build vdproj project files.
What is the correct way, using a CI build pipeline (MSBuild), to create build artifacts, which can install dlls to the GAC, of a Production Environment?
Note: there are several partial answers on SO, but I could not find any, which were up to date/answer my whole question. Please keep that in mind when answering.
You need to break this down into several user stories. You aren't finding partial answers, you are finding actual answers for specific questions. What you ask is more like an epic.
In general I would create an MSI using Windows Installer XML. WiX/MSI can install files to the GAC without using GACUTIL. If you use the WiX Visual Studio extension "Votive" you can create a .SLN / .WIXPROJ / .WXS that can be built using MSBuild. You can then put this into a source control system such as Git/TFVC/Subversion and use a build system such as VSTS V.Next Build, XAML Build, Concourse, Jenkins to automation the pipeline to build the MSI.
I've been fiddling with the TFS2015 task based build system for a few days now. The problem I keep on running into is the following:
I am trying to use nuget packages for my external references in my projects. These exernal references are actually not 3rd party libraries but simply other (shared) libraries of our company. I'm able to restore the packages in a task, but I can't figure out how i can make the "Visual studio Build" understand where to find the restored packages. It uses the hintpath in the project file to determine the location of the external libraries to include. However, these paths (which are used locally for development) don't match the paths used on the build server. I can add a referencepath to the msbuild parameters, but this path isn't searched recursively, and the nuget package restore restores packages including the entire folder structure of the package.
My question is. Is there a proper way to make the "Visual Studio build" step understand the location of my packages without changing the hintpath in the project file. If not, what is the normal way to go here. Should I move away from nuget altogether because our references are not actually 3rd party libraries, and if so, what is the alternative way of resolving the references (without adding the binaries to source control)
My question seems to be related to Storing nuget packages in alternate location on build server, however he seems to have fixed it using a copy to the location that is specified in the hintpath of the references, which is not an option for me. It seems to me there should be an easy way I'm not seeing to be able to point msbuild to the correct location for the libraries.
After the task restoring packages, you can add task "Copy Files" to copy the packages to the location "..\packages\lib\lib.dll"
I have a solution file in TFS, located at $/Library/Library.sln, containing the binary files (.dlls) of other built solutions in TFS. Within this Library solution, there is a .dll taken from $/MySQL/bin/Debug/MySQL.dll which has been generated by building my MySQL solution (located at $/MySQL/MySQL.sln).
Normally after making a change to my MySQL solution I build the solution, check it in to TFS and then copy the resulting .dll into my Library solution at $\Library\MySQL\MySQL.dll. However I’d like this process to be automatic i.e. after checking in a change to the MySQL solution, a build is triggered, and the .dll file generated from this build is automatically placed into the Library solution and then checked into TFS. How would be the best way to achieve this? I imagine gated check-ins are something to do with it but I can’t seem to get it to work.
As Daniel said in the comment, NuGet is the way to go for this. Instead of checking in the binaries to TFS, have your MySQL build publish the binaries to a nuget feed. Then have your Library solution "subscribe" to that NuGet feed.
I downloaded two DLLs (libgit2sharp.dll and git2.dll) from this site.
After that I successfully added Libgit2sharp.dll by add reference in my .NET Windows application. Now when I add git2.dll by add reference in my .NET Windows Application, it gives an error:
a reference to 'C:\User\nitesh\git2.dll' could not be added please make sure that the file is accessible and that it is a valid assembly or COM component
Can anyone please help me understand the problem?
I downloaded two DLLs (libgit2sharp.dll and git2.dll) from this site.
First off, this is not a distribution channel that the libgit2/libgit2sharp team has anything to do with.
Install as a NuGet package:
Official releases are available as a NuGet package if you prefer to download pre-built sources. See this post which explains how to install the NuGet Package Manager in Visual Studio.
This is the easiest way to make LibGit2Sharp available to your project.
Build from the source code:
You can download the source code and build the C# code into LibGit2Sharp.dll from https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2sharp, which includes the pre-built version of git2.dll which works for the particular version of the C# code.
Easiest way to build the assembly is by launching the build.libgit2sharp.cmd. This will create a Build folder into which you'll find the LibGit2Sharp.dll and a NativeBinaries folder with the native binaries.
Now when I add git2.dll by add reference in my .NET Windows Application, it gives an error
As for the error message, it sounds like you're trying to add the git2.dll to the project as though it were a CLR/.NET assembly. It is however built from C and isn't something VS is going to do anything useful with. You do not need to add it to your project.
It does need to be available for libgit2sharp to load. The following graph depicts the folder hierarchy that libgit2sharp expects
NativeBinaries+
|___amd64+
|___git2-{shortsha}.dll
|___git2-{shortsha}.pdb
|_____x86+
|___git2-{shortsha}.dll
|___git2-{shortsha}.pdb
Note: This folder structure will be dynamically created in your project output folder if you installed LibGit2Sharp as a NuGet package. However, if you built the project from the source code, you'll have to copy this folder structure as part of your project build process yourself.