My team has recently started using gRPC in our product built on .Net Framework. Due to the high volume of debug symbols in mainly libgrpc_csharp_ext.x64.so our build artifact has exploded from 50 MB to 400 MB. This introduced some problems in our CI/CD environment and also in our delivery chain due to low Internet bandwidth.
I would like to reduce the size of our build artifact.
I know that debug symbols can be stripped from libgrpc_csharp_ext.x64.so using binutils/strip command.
Is that the best way? Or are there some settings in Visual Studio (csproj, sln), Nuget or MSBuild that can be applied to remove debug information from the inherited gRPC so files?
What is the easiest way to use binutils/strip on Windows?
I am afraid that msbuild cannot get that. so file is bases on linux and VS IDE is based on Windows and cannot handle the so file. And it is not generated by MSBuild, VS IDE and is copied from nuget package into your output files based on the RuntimeIdentifier.
But the file is generated by other tool rather VS IDE and VS IDE and MSBuild cannot handle it and it is just copied from the third tool into your VS IDE.
In fact, if it is dll type(Windows) and you have the open source code of the libgrpc_csharp_ext.x64 project.
Note: you have to modify the open source code by MSBuild at the very beginning and then you could generate the file without dll info. And there is no other option to remove the debug info after the re-generate process.
And then you could add these at the bottom of the csproj file:
<PropertyGroup>
<DebugSymbols>false</DebugSymbols>
<DebugType>none</DebugType>
</PropertyGroup>
And then rebuild the source code to generate the dll without debug info. That is MSBuild function.
But that is for Windows. And it is not suitable for your linux file. And there is no option about it on MSBuild, Nuget, csproj file.
So the best function is use your method, third party stripping tool that uses binutils/strip command. And it is more easier and suitable.
Related
When I attempt to publish my package using NuGet Package Explorer, I see the following warning:
Deterministic (dll/exe): Non deterministic
Ensure that the following property is enabled for CI builds
and you're using at least the 2.1.300 SDK:
<ContinuousIntegrationBuild>true</ContinuousIntegrationBuild>
However, when I add that property to the PropertyGroup (as described here), VS 2019 freaks out so badly I literally need to ctrl+alt+delete to close it.
According to this page the property name is <Deterministic>, but that doesn't seem to do anything at all.
So how do I get deterministic builds to work?
Visual Studio 2019, v16.7.1
.Net SDK 3.1.401 (LTS)
An easier answer is to not mess with .csproj files (urgh!) and do this via the command line, in your CI script.
add the /p:ContinuousIntegrationBuild=true argument to the dotnet pack command.
dotnet pack
-c $env:CONFIGURATION
/p:ContinuousIntegrationBuild=true
-p:PackageVersion=$env:APPVEYOR_BUILD_VERSION
(make this all one line. I've multi-lined it, for readability)
NOTE: the --no-build argument is NOT here. We need to build this again. Or you add that param to the build step, before this.
This is taken from an example CI file I use. So when I'm in release mode, I pack the library into a nuget and publish it.
Keeps things clean and out of your .csproj file (which is very hard to grok and maintain).
I basically just found the answer in this blogpost:
While deterministic builds are enabled by default in .NET SDK projects, there is an extra property, ContinuousIntegrationBuild, to set on the build server to normalize stored file paths. These should not be enabled during local dev or the debugger won’t be able to find the local source files.
<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(TF_BUILD)' == 'true'">
<ContinuousIntegrationBuild>true</ContinuousIntegrationBuild>
</PropertyGroup>
So I'm trying to automate the process for building a packaged app from a Unity project and I've hit a roadblock when trying to use MSBuild to build the final app packages.
In Unity, when you build for UWP, a folder /UWP/ is generated for the project. These contain csharp projects for two .dlls that are required to build the uwp app.
For me, these dlls got generated in a folder for each platform (x86,x64, and ARM), but this is where I hit the roadblock. To build the app packages I use MSBuild(I've also tried with the Developer Command Prompt - same result) with the command.
MSBuild "{Project}.csproj" /p:Configuration=Debug;AppxBundle=Always;AppxBundlePlatforms="x64";OutputPath="AppxPackages"
This throws the error
"C:\Users\{User}\Desktop\Output\{Project}\{Project}.csproj" (default target) (1) ->
(BeforeResolveReferences target) ->
C:\Users\{User}\Desktop\Output\{Project}\{Project}.csproj(319,5): error MSB3030: Could not copy the file "{path-to-unity-project}\UWP\Assembly-CSharp\bin\AnyCPU\Debug\Unprocessed\Assembly-CSharp.dll" because it was not found.
What is happening here is that MSBuild is attempting to find a dll in a folder "AnyCPU" that simply does not exist.
Is there any way I could tell MSBuild to individually build each platform rather than look for a combined dll, or am I using MSBuild incorrectly?
Even though I was unable to figure out why the Debug configuration looks for an assembly in the wrong directory, thanks to #Leo-MSFT I was able to fix the error that was occurring.
Firstly, I was calling MSBuild on the game project, this needed to be the generated solution instead.
Secondly, instead of using the Debug configuration, I used the Release configuration.
And finally, I was confused by the contents generated by the build compared to a build from Visual Studio (Right Click->Store->Create App Packages...). While VS generates an .appxbundle, using MSBuild will generate individually for each of the platforms selected such as game_x64.appx, game_ARM.appx, and a few more.
You can create the bundle yourself by using the makeappx tool.
I am trying to build MSIs in a TFS Build by shelling out to DEVENV.exe (since MSBUILD does not support VSPROJs). In any case, my first installer project builds fine, the second one fails. If I reverse the order, same thing happends (i.e. the error does not follow the project). Looking at the output, I get the following errors:
Deserializing the project state for project '[MyProject].dbproj'
[MyProject].dbproj : error : Error HRESULT E_FAIL has been returned from a call to a COM component.
Also, I get:
Package 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.TestCaseManagement.QualityToolsPackage, Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.TestCaseManagement, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' failed to load
It looks as though the first build tries to serialize the DB project (and it says it succeeds, but there is no DBML file anywhere). Then the second build tries to deserialize the DB project and fails.
I've tried resetting env settings (using the /resetusersettings flag) as well as using the /resetskippkgs flag. Nothing works.
Any ideas?
When you shell out to DevEnv, are you building that specific project (.vdproj file), or are you building the solution? It sounds like VS is trying to open the solution on the build machine and the database and test project systems aren't present.
Have you considered porting your setup project to WiX?
Start simple. Unless you're well versed in the problem you're trying to solve it's usually best to try it "by hand" before getting it running as part of a TFS build. RDP into the build server and try running the necessary commands at the command line and see what happens. You can even go simpler than that and RDP into the build machine and load Visual Studio and build it.
Bottom line is that if you can't get it to build within Visual Studio or at the command line by calling devenv.exe it won't work as part of the team build.
I am using the below Exec task to do precisely what you are doing as part of a TFS build. So I know this works. Your platform and configuration may vary depending on what you're building. The nice thing about this is that you'll have a log file at C:\Temp\MSIBuildOutputLog.txt that you can analyze for additional errors and information.
<Exec Command=""C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" "$(PathToSolution)\solution.sln" /Build "Release|Mixed Platforms" /out "C:\Temp\MSIBuildOutputLog.txt"" />
One important thing to note... There is a bug in VS2010 which causes MSI generation to fail when you try to run it at the command line using devenv.exe. This took me days to find and figure out, but you need this hotfix. Worked like a charm...
http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/KB2286556
Actually it's the deployment projects that don't support msbuild. FWIW, this is all deprecated in the next release of Visual Studio so you might want to start looking at InstallShield Limited Edition and/or Windows Installer XML now before spending too much time on dead end, broken technology. Both of these alternatives have proper MSBuild support aswell as many other improvements.
It would be perhaps better and quicker to adopt WIX (Windows Installer XML) which is the technology MS now recommends to use within VS/MSBuild/TFSBuild environment to crate MSIs.
It is relatively easy to setup and integrate within your VS Solutions. It uses XML based files to describe your MSIs and uses these files to create your MSIs when you compile.
I would start by downloading Wix from http://wix.codeplex.com/
Once installed you would be able to use the VS2010 integration of Wix based projects to create MSIs. To get started quickly simply add a new Wix project to your solution and reference the projects whose output you wish to combine into an MSI. Next you can run a tool called "Heat" which is included with Wix toolkit to generate the XML files by scanning your projects.
Once you have these XML files, add them to your Wix project and compile.
Where can I find the build script -all the list of tools used to build and link the assemlies like al.exe etc.-that BUILDS, REBUILDS the visual-Studio solutions?
MSBuild (the build engine for Visual Studio) uses a model where the tool(s) used for an action are dictated by the project file being built. Thus your list of tools will vary based on the types of projects you are building. The easiest way to find out the list of tools being used for a build of any given solution would be to turn on a more detailed logging level (detailed or diag) for MSBuild via Tools->Options->Projects & Solutions->Build & Run in Visual Studio and then parse/investigate the build output for an indication of the tools currently invoked by the Build Targets.
As Nick Nieslanik has said in his answer, the actual toolset will vary based on the project type (and target programming language), maybe even the selected .NET framework version.
To have single view on all definitions, properties, targets, etc. used by MSBuild, you could generate and review a fully preprocessed project file (only available with MSBuild 4.0 or newer).
From msbuild.exe /? output:
/preprocess[:file]
Creates a single, aggregated project file by
inlining all the files that would be imported during a
build, with their boundaries marked. This can be
useful for figuring out what files are being imported
and from where, and what they will contribute to
the build. By default the output is written to
the console window. If the path to an output file
is provided that will be used instead.
(Short form: /pp)
Example:
/pp:out.txt
Example:
msbuild.exe myproj.csproj /pp:out.xml
In this case out.xml is basically a self-contained file that has all the Import-ed project files inline so you can easily search and browse them.
In each project (in this case a c# csproj) file is a link to the msbuild used by msbuild/visual studio to build.
e.g. <Import Project="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />
This target links to the internal files used.
Does anyone know if VB6 IDE has the ability to run pre-build events prior to making and compiling the code (this is for creating a .vb file from a template file for subversion revision numbers to be compiled into the code using SubWCRev.exe).
Thanks
There is no method to do this from the IDE. My company built a utility (in VB6) to do our automated build process including steps like you mention (updating version numbers, etc).
The essential trick is that you can run VB6.exe from the command line to compile projects. To see a list of all the option just goto the VB6 directory and type
VB6 /?
A list of all the command line options will appear.
This is what we use for our build utility.
VB6 /Make <project name> /out <errorlog filename>
We copy our project to a temporary project files and alter it using check boxes and parameters files. For example we can choose to compile everything as binary compatible or project compatible. The VB6 project files are easy to manipulate as they are just text. There are any number of things you can do if you write your own build utility.
We use Visual Build Pro to do this. It has built-in support for updating the version numbers of VB6 projects. Our project group includes ~7 ActiveX projects which is really painful to build within VB in the correct order, so we just always use Visual Build Pro because it automatically handles building the projects in the right order based on their dependencies.
There is some support in NAnt (or possibly NAnt.Contrib) for building vb6 projects. NAnt can then handle all of the pre/post build events. Just be prepared for some tweaking.