I have a Web API project that depends on a NuGet package. This package contains an XML file that is referenced by my application at runtime.
When I build the solution and run it in debug mode from Visual studio the file gets copied to \bin, and the application runs without problem.
When I publish the application the file doesn't get copied to the final output, and I can see that it's never been copied to the \obj folder.
I've though of adding the file reference directly to the package in the \packages folder, but this will break whenever the package version is updated.
How can I specify that the file should be copied when deploying?
I figured it out based on this blogpost.
I added the following to the end of the .csproj file:
<PropertyGroup>
<CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn>
CustomCollectFiles;
$(CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn);
</CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="CustomCollectFiles">
<Message Text="=== CustomCollectFiles ===" Importance="high" />
<ItemGroup>
<_CustomFiles Include="..\Packages\**\*PackageName.*.xml*" />
<FilesForPackagingFromProject Include="%(_CustomFiles.Identity)">
<DestinationRelativePath>bin\%(Filename)%(Extension)</DestinationRelativePath>
</FilesForPackagingFromProject>
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
Petter Brodins answer almost work for me. And since I am new to Stackoverflow commenting i can not add a comment. In order for it to work I changed the Include to "..\Packages*\lib*.xml". But this was a life saver since i wrote a lot of documentation and couldn't get it to my swagger implementation.
Related
I'm using LibSassBuilder in a Blazor project. I have read the docs and it's unclear to me if the package's config allows you to specify an output directory. I'd prefer to keep my .scss files outside of wwwroot and just place the compiled .css files there-- but I don't see if there's a way to do this. If not, is there a way to specify a file move to wwwroot in the Visual Studio build pipeline?
I'm also developing a Blazor project using LibSassBuilder. This is how I got it to work in my .csproj file:
<PropertyGroup>
<LibSassOutputStyle>compressed</LibSassOutputStyle>
<LibSassOutputStyle Condition="'$(Configuration)' == 'Debug'">expanded</LibSassOutputStyle>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<CSSFiles Include="**/*.css" />
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="MoveCSS" AfterTargets="Build">
<Move SourceFiles="#(CSSFiles)" DestinationFolder="wwwroot/css" />
</Target>
I have an ASP.NET Core project that builds properly with VS but fails with TeamCity.
It is a project that compiles to a library, but TeamCity tries to build it as an executable, and complains about the lack of 'main':
CSC error CS5001: Program does not contain a static 'Main' method suitable for an entry point
The content of the .csproj file are as follow:
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">
<PropertyGroup Label="Configuration" Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|AnyCPU'">
<OutputType>Library</OutputType>
</PropertyGroup>
<PropertyGroup>
<TargetFramework>net462</TargetFramework>
<RuntimeIdentifier>win7-x86</RuntimeIdentifier>
<OutputTypeEx>library</OutputTypeEx>
<StartupObject />
<AssemblyName>Test</AssemblyName>
<RootNamespace>Test</RootNamespace>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<Folder Include="wwwroot\" />
</ItemGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore" Version="1.1.2" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc" Version="1.1.3" />
<PackageReference Include="Newtonsoft.Json" Version="10.0.3" />
</ItemGroup>
</Project>
Visual studio has no problem building the dll file.
To reproduce:
Create an ASP.NET Core (.NET Framework) project
Change the output type to library
Remove the program.cs / startup.cs files
Compile with Visual Studio to confirm a library is being built
Build with Team City and an error will appear
To avoid that error, Please look into this SO post or this
You should be using the dotnet core plugin or you can easily
configure dotnet build command(if dotnet is present in your build
servers).
Or you can refer the MusicStore build.cmd file for reference. This basically downloads and installs the dotnet and all the dependencies and then builds the project.
Hope it helps!
I found a workaround; in the project file, VS puts this:
<OutputTypeEx>library</OutputTypeEx>
I need to add one line:
<OutputType>Library</OutputType>
<OutputTypeEx>library</OutputTypeEx>
So it looks like the build with TeamCity is not handling the OutputTypeEx propery but it handles the OutputType one.
I still see this as a bug, but at least there is a workaround.
i'm stuck with extending my msbuild project file and tfs 2010. What i want to achieve is to automatically generate the documentation for my source code after the build. I searched the web and found out, that the file Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets defines a lot of customizable targets for either desktop- or team-build. One of them is the GenerateDocumentation-Target which i want to use. The Problem i have is, that despite i imported this file, the overloaded targets are not invoked by msbuild. The header of my vcxproj-File looks as follows:
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
after this i include the team build targets file with the statement
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\TeamBuild\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets"/>
At the very end of this project file i tried to overload some targets as suggested in the TeamFoundation target file:
<Target Name="GenerateDocumentation">
<Message Text="GenerateDocumentation invoked" Importance="high"/>
</Target>
<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
<Message Text="BeforeBuild invoked" Importance="high" />
</Target>
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<Message Text="AfterBuild invoked" Importance="high" />
</Target>
but except the AfterBuild-Target neither the GenerateDocumentation nor BeforeBuild target is called for a local build nor a build with the build server. Am i'm missing something? Is the DefaultTarget="Build" correct? I tried to change this to DefaultTarget="DesktopBuild" but then calling msbuild resulted in a variety of errors (MSB4018). In the project file the target file $(VCTargetsPath)\Microsoft.Cpp.targets is imported too. When removing this import, the GenerateDocumentation target is called, but not the other ones (including ResourceCompile which i need too). Can i use both of them somehow?
Thanks in advance...
what about adding this at the end of your build task...
<CallTarget Targets="GenerateDocumentation"></CallTarget>
</Target>
Is there a generic way I can get a post-build event to copy the built assembly, and any .config and any .xml comments files to a folder (usually solution relative) without having to write a post-build event on each project in a solution?
The goal is to have a folder that contains the last successful build of an entire solution.
It would be nice to use the same build solution over multiple solutions too, possibly enabling/ disabling certain projects (so don't copy unit tests etc).
Thanks,
Kieron
You can set common OutputPath to build all projects in Sln in one temp dir and copy required files to the latest build folder. In copy action you can set a filter to copy all dlls without "test" in its name.
msbuild.exe 1.sln /p:Configuration=Release;Platform=AnyCPU;OutputPath=..\latest-temp
There exists more complicated and more flexible solution. You can setup a hook for build process using CustomAfterMicrosoftCommonTargets. See this post for example.
Sample targets file can be like that:
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<BuildDependsOn>
$(BuildDependsOn);
PublishToLatest
</BuildDependsOn>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="PreparePublishingToLatest">
<PropertyGroup>
<TargetAssembly>$(TargetPath)</TargetAssembly>
<TargetAssemblyPdb>$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).pdb</TargetAssemblyPdb>
<TargetAssemblyXml>$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).xml</TargetAssemblyXml>
<TargetAssemblyConfig>$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).config</TargetAssemblyConfig>
<TargetAssemblyManifest>$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).manifest</TargetAssemblyManifest>
<IsTestAssembly>$(TargetName.ToUpper().Contains("TEST"))</IsTestAssembly>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<PublishToLatestFiles Include="$(TargetAssembly)" Condition="Exists('$(TargetAssembly)')" />
<PublishToLatestFiles Include="$(TargetAssemblyPdb)" Condition="Exists('$(TargetAssemblyPdb)')" />
<PublishToLatestFiles Include="$(TargetAssemblyXml)" Condition="Exists('$(TargetAssemblyXml)')" />
<PublishToLatestFiles Include="$(TargetAssemblyConfig)" Condition="Exists('$(TargetAssemblyConfig)')" />
<PublishToLatestFiles Include="$(TargetAssemblyManifest)" Condition="Exists('$(TargetAssemblyManifest)')" />
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
<Target Name="PublishToLatest"
Condition="Exists('$(LatestDir)') AND '$(IsTestAssembly)' == 'False' AND '#(PublishToLatestFiles)' != ''"
DependsOnTargets="PreparePublishingToLatest">
<Copy SourceFiles="#(PublishToLatestFiles)" DestinationFolder="$(LatestDir)" SkipUnchangedFiles="true" />
</Target>
</Project>
In that targets file you can specify any actions you want.
You can place it here "C:\Program Files\MSBuild\v4.0\Custom.After.Microsoft.Common.targets" or here "C:\Program Files\MSBuild\4.0\Microsoft.Common.targets\ImportAfter\PublishToLatest.targets".
And third variant is to add to every project you want to publish import of custom targets. See How to: Use the Same Target in Multiple Project Files
In project file I import my own target file
<Import Project="Build\CopyDependencies.target" />
and later I call target from that target file
<CallTarget Targets="CopyDependencies" UseResultsCache="false" />
If I edit CopyDependencies.target file I have to reload whole solution and only then changes to CopyDependencies.target take effect. I believe it is some sort of build definitions caching in Visual Studio? If it is, maybe it can be turned off?
Thanks #KazR
Here is a smaller Solution that you can insert into your .csproj file
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<PropertyGroup>
<TempProjectFile>Build.$([System.Guid]::NewGuid()).proj</TempProjectFile>
</PropertyGroup>
<Copy SourceFiles="Build.proj" DestinationFiles="$(TempProjectFile)" />
<MSBuild Projects="$(TempProjectFile)" />
<ItemGroup>
<TempProjectFiles Include="Build.????????-????-????-????-????????????.proj"/>
</ItemGroup>
<Delete Files="#(TempProjectFiles)" />
</Target>
Problem solved
I don't know how you would disable the VS cache, however I may have a workaround that would allow you to edit the build target without having to reload the solution.
You could use the MSBuild task in your proj file to call a wrapper target that copies your CopyDependencies.target file to CopyDependencies.[RandomNumber].target, then invokes your CopyDependencies target in the newly created file, and finally deletes it.
This would force VS to reload the target on each invocation as the filename is different.
Here's an example:
myProject.proj
Add this to the AfterBuild target:
<MSBuild Projects="Wrapper.target" Targets="MyWrappedTarget" UnloadProjectsOnCompletion="true"/>
Wrapper.target
Here we have the target that will - at build time - copy the real target file and invoke the desired build target within it (I've used an inline c# task which is only available in MSBuild 4.0):
<UsingTask TaskName="RandomNumber" TaskFactory="CodeTaskFactory" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.Build.Tasks.v4.0.dll">
<ParameterGroup>
<Number ParameterType="System.Int32" Output="true"/>
</ParameterGroup>
<Task>
<Code Type="Fragment" Language="cs">
<!-- CDATA -->
Random rndGenerator = new Random();
Number = rndGenerator.Next(Int32.MaxValue);
<!-- CDATA -->
</Code>
</Task>
</UsingTask>
<Target Name="MyWrappedTarget">
<Message Text="MyWrappedTarget target called"/>
<RandomNumber>
<Output TaskParameter="Number" PropertyName="FileNumber"/>
</RandomNumber>
<PropertyGroup>
<CopiedTarget>inner.test.$(FileNumber).target</CopiedTarget>
</PropertyGroup>
<Copy SourceFiles="inner.test.target" DestinationFiles="$(CopiedTarget)"/>
<MSBuild Projects="$(CopiedTarget)" Targets="_innerTestTarget"/>
<Delete Files="$(CopiedTarget)"/>
</Target>
inner.test.target
This contains the real build target you want to execute, in this example it's a simple file copy.
<Target Name="_innerTestTarget">
<Message Text="This is a inner test text message"/>
<Copy SourceFiles="x.txt" DestinationFiles="x1.txt"/>
</Target>
This isn't production ready, but hopefully illustrates my point.
With this (slightly convoluted) process in place, you can change the inner.test.target file without having to reload the solution in VS.
Here's a solution that doesn't require any MSBuild scripting at all.
I noticed that unloading and reloading a project doesn't get around the cache, but closing and reopening the solution does. In addition, Visual Studio will prompt you to reload the solution if it notices the .sln file has changed. And finally, this superuser question explains how to touch a file in Windows.
Putting these together, I added a Visual Studio external tool to touch the current solution file. Here's how:
Select TOOLS > External Tools ...
Click the Add button to add a new tool.
Set properties as follows:
Title: Reload Solution
Command: cmd.exe
Arguments: /c copy "$(SolutionFileName)"+>nul
Initial directory: $(SolutionDir)
and turn on Use Output window
Click OK to close the External Tools window
Now if you have made changes to your MSBuild files, just select TOOLS > Reload Solution and all your build files will be reloaded.
I'm using Windows 7 64-bit and Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows Desktop.
I have a different solution, not involving temporary files:
Include.targets file:
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<Target Name="Foobar">
<Copy SourceFiles="test.source" DestinationFiles="testFoobar.dest" />
</Target>
</Project>
Project file:
....
<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
<Exec Command="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\MSBuild.exe Include.targets /t:Foobar" ContinueOnError="false" />
</Target>
....
in this case VS does not recognize the MSBuild command, and does not cache the file.
happy coding!
Before running MSBuild I run this to clear the download cache:
call "%VS120COMNTOOLS%vsvars32.bat"
echo Clear download cache
gacutil -cdl