I've created a custom MSBuild task for our database project. This tasks uses XLSX file to generate reference data insert scripts that get merged into the post deployment script.
I tested this with a test MSBuild proj and it works well.
Now when I integrate it into the real DBProj file, the output of the task is duplicated and I cant see the MSBuild output logging.
So, my questions are:
1) How can I see the full MSBuild logs in Visual Studio?
2) I'm not sure AfterBuild or BeforeBuild is running twice but maybe?
Thanks
You can debug your MSBuild scripts, set breakpoints, inspect values, etc... See here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2010/07/06/debugging-msbuild-script-with-visual-studio.aspx
Related
I have a ClickOnce project that I'm publishing on DevOps. I've set the MSBuild Arguments property for the WinForm solution's build stage in DevOps to /target:Publish in order to trigger the creation of all the ClickOnce files:
However, that solution also contains an SSDT project, and adding the /target:Publish setting appears to then cause the build process to try publish the SSDT too. That then fails with the error:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v15.0\SSDT\Microsoft.Data.Tools.Schema.SqlTasks.targets(1808,5):
error MSB4044: The "SqlPublishTask" task was not given a value for the
required parameter "SqlPublishProfilePath"
Presumably it's failing because there's no publish profile specified in a build parameter for the SSDT to use.
I don't want MSBuild to publish the DacPac to a server, I just want it to create the DacPac. How can I stop the /target:Publish triggering the SSDT publish, is there another build argument I can add to stop that happening?
Notes on what I tried so far to solve this, none of which has worked:
Read about the -target switch in the MS Build official docs in the MSBuild command-line reference and in the MSBuild targets section.
Looked at the code in the .csproj file to try and identify the 'Publish' sections - think Publish must also call Build.
Unticking Deploy for the SSDTs in the solution configuration in VS
Adding entries for False in the Release and Deployment configurations in the SSDT's .csproj file, and also setting that to false for the Debug configuration (as per this question)
Setting MSBuild to only publish one project using the MS Build arguments on DevOps (as per this answer)
Considered pulling the ClickOnce publish out into an entirely separate stage using Mage.exe as per this Walkthrough: Manually deploy a ClickOnce application
Tried to create a publish profile that doesn't actually publish, so that the publish stage can complete (was looking at this question for ideas on that and also the official documentation for SqlPackage.exe)
Eventually I solved the issue above a completely different way. Instead of getting MSBuild to do what I wanted it to, I instead split the solution configuration in two, with one stage for the databases and one for the WinForms project without the databases.
I then used two separate VS Build stages on DevOps with only the WinForms stage still having /target:Publish set.
I've written that up here, but would still like to know the answer to whether it's possible to tell MSBuild not to build the SSDTs when the target is set to Publish?
I've been charged with coming up with a workflow in a non-TFS build tool that will build a solution, run unit test projects in the solution, then package the final output of the build for deployment. I originally had constructed a workflow that used MSBuild with the Outdir parameter to get the publishable application for later storage. When I added unit test projects to the solution they work fine in Visual Studio (2010) but when I run my solution through MSBuild the MSTest step can't find the tests because the VSMDI file points to the BIN folders in the test projects, but the Outdir parameter is applied a the Solution level so the test DLLs are constructed in the Outdir directory instead of the BIN folder. If I remove Outdir from MSBuild the tests run, but I don't get a publishable application. This is a problem for web applications where we don't want to publish the code files and other artifacts that Visual Studio Publish would exclude.
Any ideas how to get MSTest to run the tests correctly based on the VSMDI file when MSBuild is run with Outdir? I thought about scripting an XML transform to change the paths in VSMDI to the Publish folder, but that seems like a hack.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
You could abandon the vsmdi file all together and pass the dlls in a list to the commandline tool?
Otherwise id plum for the transform. The transform is not as bad hack as you think because at least you know the devs are running the same tests as your build and you'd have this problem as it occurs when you try to build, test and package the release version.
There are numerous examples and ways on passing a property value from TFS 2010 Build Workflow into MSBuild however I need to do the reverse.
Basically on the build boxes custom target files have been written to do some processing on all the builds that run on the boxes. These target files have custom tasks in them some of which expose return values (or output parameters).
I would like to be able to read the values of these output parameters from within the build workflow (TFS 2010) if possible. So basically
A TFS 2010 Build workflow runs on a build server
The build server has custom target files which inject into the MSBuild Pipeline and do some processing
The results from 2. above need to go back into the TFS Build Workflow.
Would appreciate some help into this problem please.
One way would be to write the output data to a location that is easily accessible from TFS Workflow. Such as a file. Then you'd need to customize the TFS Workflow a bit to read in from the file following the MSBuild activity.
I am setting up TeamCity to deploy our Website Project application (using a *.wdproj) and Web Deploy application to IIS.
I have a build configuration that uses MSBuild.exe with the MSDeployPublish to build and then deploy the application.
We now want to get the application to deploy to multiple target environments, therefore need a way to supply different settings based on the target environment.
I have added a parameters.xml file to the Web Deployment Project, and have verified that the parameters set in here are making all the way through the target IIS server and being correctly applied - great!
Now what I want to do is have different parameter settings per environment. I was hoping I could use something like the MSDeploy.exe -setParam argument to specify different values for each environment, however I can find no way to get my parameter values into MSBuild via the commandline.
I suspect I might need to do one of the following:
Split MSBuild and MSDeploy into separate build steps.
Configure a task somewhere in the pipeline to take 1 of n versions of parameters.something.xml and move it into parameters.xml so it gets picked up by the rest of the pipeline.
I'm looking for the simplest way to move ahead at this point, any suggestions welcome.
For reference, here is the command I'm experimenting with now:
msbuild /target:MSDeployPublish MySite_deploy.wdproj /P:Configuration=Debug
/P:DeployOnBuild=True /P:DeployTarget=MSDeployPublish
/P:MsDeployServiceUrl=www.myserver.com:8172/MsDeploy.axd
/P:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True /P:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSvc
/P:CreatePackageOnPublish=True /P:UserName=MyUser /p:Password=MyPassword
/P:DeployIisAppPath=www.myserver.com/MySite
/P:ServerURL=http://www.tryingtoforcethis.com
It's working beautifully except the value for ServerURL, which is a parameter I've defined in my parameters.xml, is not making its way into the target site. The default I specified in parameters.xml, however, is. So I know that the parameters are working, I just can't figure out how to add them to the msbuild commandline.
Well, I think the short answer is that with MSBuild 4.0 and VS2010, you can't just pass arbitrary parameters into MSDeployPublish from the call to MSBuild.
I found these posts helpful:
http://forums.iis.net/t/1167657.aspx/1 - Ming Chen's comments
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TinyHappyFeatures3PublishingImprovementsChainedConfigTransformsAndDeployingASPNETAppsFromTheCommandLine.aspx - the comments from Richard Szalay at the bottom
After reading these, and sifting through the Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets file for some time trying to find a "way in", I finally settled on having multiple copies of Parameters.xml in my project folder in source control, labelled according to their environment eg:
Parameters.Test.xml
Parameters.Staging.xml
Parameters.Live.xml
Then, prior to the package and deploy, I just copy one of these files into Parameters.xml and it gets picked up by the rest of the pipeline - done!
BTW I had a temporary problem getting the parameters.xml copy and subsequent cleanup to work within a single MSBuild.exe call due to what seems to be some sort of file access issue, I've detailed it here:
MSBuild.exe Copy task not working properly unless a version of the file already appears in target
To answer your question, the parameterization of your command line is not a concern of MSBuild. Instead, you should utilize external tools. For example, if you run your msbuild command from a batch file you could pass the parameters to the batch file and run it for each environment with different parameters. Another approach is to use a build system like TeamCity or VSTS and utilize their parameterization mechanism. Adapted for the VSTS or TFS, your command could look like this:
msbuild MySite_deploy.wdproj /target:MSDeployPublish /p:Configuration=Debug
/p:DeployOnBuild=True /p:MsDeployServiceUrl=$(IIsHostNameIp)
/p:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True /p:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSvc
/p:CreatePackageOnPublish=True /p:UserName=$(IIsUserName) /p:Password=$(IIsPassword)
/p:DeployIisAppPath=$(IIsSite)
In addition, I would suggest some clean up for your origianl command line:
Using both /p:target and /p:DeployTarget is redundant. Any one of them is enough. Also it could be replaced with /p:WebPublishMethod.
For /p:MSDeployServiceUrl it is enough to only provide a DNS name or IP. the port and the Url is automatically derived from the /p:MSDeployPublishingMethod=WMSVC.
The custom parameter /p:ServerURL is unknown and won't be mapped anywhere.
msbuild.exe {build-script.proj} /property:{someParameter=someValue}
In your build script you can use $(someParameter) as a variable
I have a build.proj, that is a MSBuild file and can be run locally.
All I need from TFS is
Get the sources from TFS Source Control.
Call "MSBuild.exe /t:Deploy".
Update the build status based on the result of MSBuild.
I have tried to make a template combining the DefaultTemplate.xaml and UpgradeTemplate.xaml.
But so far, no luck :-(
Can someone help me make this template?
If you select the upgrade template that comes out of the box when you create a new TFS project with 2010, you can supply your old TFS2008 proj (MSBuild) file without problems. Please read http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd647553.aspx for more details.
You should use DefaultTemplate. I had the same problem and I solved it this way.
You can do it using UpgradeTempate also, but using DefaultTemplate was easier for me.
On Process section follow these steps:
Select Default template
Add your project into Items To Build collection
Set MSBuild Arguments (Advanced section) to "/t:Deploy"
I have MSBuild project file for running builds locally. This script is used also for sever builds. I have three MSBuild projects in Items To Build collection. One for PreBuild step (some checks before build is executed), main build script used also for local build and the last script for additional post build tasks (deploy process). I'm setting additional MSBuild propertires like IncrementalBuild and ServerBuild properties in MSBuild Arguments.