How do you stop MSBuild execution without raising an error? - msbuild

Question

With MSBuild, as soon as an error occurs, the execution of the project is stopped unless ContinueOnError=true.
Is there a way to stop the execution of the project without raising an error?
I'd like to have this possibility because I have an existing set of msbuild project files and in some circumstances, I would need to stop processing the projects without raising an error because it is a normal exit point for the process and I don't want the person using the script to think something is wrong.
I know I could just set some property and put all remaining tasks conditional on this but I would like to avoid that.

Answer 1

As you explain it, you want to stop your build under special circumstance without raising an error because it is a normal exit point. Why not create a target doing nothing that will serve as your exit point. Under your special conditions you will call this target.
<target Name="BuildProcess">
<Message Text="Build starts"/>
...
<CallTarget Targets="Exit"
Condition="Special Condition"/>
<CallTarget Targets="Continue"
Condition="!(Special Condition)"/>
...
</target>
<target Name="Continue">
<Message Text="Build continue"/>
</target>
<target Name="Exit">
<!-- This target could be removed -->
<!-- Only used for logging here -->
<Message Text="Build ended because special condition occured"/>
</target>

Answer 2

The way to do this is the create another target to wrap the target you're interested in conditioning.
So if you have a scenario with a target like this:
<Target Name="MainTarget">
command - run under a certain condition
command - run under a certain condition
command - run under a certain condition
command - run under a certain condition
command - run under a certain condition
</Target>
The point is that you want to save having to use the condition statement a whole bunch of times, right?
To address this, you can do this:
<Target Name="MainWrapper" DependsOnTargets="EstablishCondition;MainTarget" />
<Target Name="EstablishCondition">
<SomeCustomTask Input="blah">
<Output PropertyName="TestProperty" TaskParameter="value" />
</SomeCustomTask>
</Target>
<Target Name="MainTarget" Condition="$(TestProperty)='true'">
command
command
command
command
command
</Target>

Answer 3

Eventually found an elegant solution for a similar issue. I just needed to rephrase my concern from "Break/interrupt MSBuild execution" to "Skip the next targets".
<PropertyGroup>
<LastInfoFileName>LastInfo.xml</LastInfoFileName>
<NewInfoFileName>NewInfo.xml</NewInfoFileName>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="CheckSomethingFirst" BeforeTargets="DoSomething">
<Message Condition="ConditionForContinue"
Text="Let's carry on with next target" />
<WriteLinesToFile Condition="ConditionForContinue"
File="$(NewInfoFileName)"
Lines="#(SomeText)"
Overwrite="true" />
<Message Condition="!ConditionForContinue"
Text="Let's discard next target" />
<Copy Condition="!ConditionForContinue"
SourceFiles="$(LastInfoFileName)"
DestinationFiles="$(NewInfoFileName)" />
</Target>
<Target Name="DoSomething" Inputs="$(NewInfoFileName)"
Outputs="$(LastInfoFileName)">
<Message Text="DoSomethingMore" />
<Copy SourceFiles="$(NewInfoFileName)"
DestinationFiles="$(LastInfoFileName)" />
</Target>
This works ok with a command like:
msbuild.exe Do.targets /t:DoSomething
where target DoSomething Inputs/Outputs are correctly checked after the CheckSomethingFirst target was executed.