I have VS2010 project with several third-party references. Is there any way to automatically output these references to $(OutputPath)\Libraries instead of just $(OutputPath)?
Right now I have a custom AfterBuild target which looks like this,
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<ItemGroup>
<LibFiles Include="$(SolutionDir)\lib\dotnetzip-1.9\Release\Ionic.Zip.dll" />
<LibFiles Include="$(SolutionDir)\lib\ninject-2.2.0.0\Ninject.dll" />
<LibFiles Include="$(SolutionDir)\lib\nlog-2.0.0.2000\NLog.dll" />
<LibFiles Include="$(SolutionDir)\lib\nlog-2.0.0.2000\NLog.Extended.dll" />
</ItemGroup>
<Copy SourceFiles="#(LibFiles)" DestinationFolder="$(OutputPath)\Libraries" />
</Target>
However this gets tiring since I have to manually add references to #(LibFiles) when adding a reference in VS.
Is there an easier way?
Try to do it this way:
<ItemGroup>
<LibFiles Include="$(SolutionDir)\lib\**\*.dll" />
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="AfterBuild" Inputs="#(LibFiles)">
<Copy SourceFiles="#(LibFiles)" DestinationFolder="$(OutputPath)\Libraries" />
</Target>
Pros:
you don't have to modify AfterBuild target everytime you add new
reference into your projects
libraries are copied only once or if datetime of any of files in
#(LibFiles) is changed (after update)
Cons:
you will have more dlls in Libraries folder, I guess. But you can filter them using Exclude="$(SolutionDir)\lib\**\Debug\*.dll" for example
Related
I have a VS 2019 solution with several projects. There is one project that every other project depends on and I have some T4 templates in that project. The templates are regenerated every time I invoke the Build command (no changes) and therefore all the dependent projects are also rebuilt.
How can I fix this so that the templates are only regenerated when necessary? My project file has the following:
<PropertyGroup>
<TransformOnBuild>true</TransformOnBuild>
<OverwriteReadOnlyOutputFiles>true</OverwriteReadOnlyOutputFiles>
<TransformOutOfDateOnly>true</TransformOutOfDateOnly>
</PropertyGroup>
<Import Project="$(VSToolsPath)\TextTemplating\Microsoft.TextTemplating.targets" />
<ItemGroup>
<None Update="Messages\Messages.tt">
<Generator>TextTemplatingFileGenerator</Generator>
<LastGenOutput>Messages.generated.cs</LastGenOutput>
</None>
<EmbeddedResource Update="Messages\Messages.de.resx" />
<EmbeddedResource Update="Messages\Messages.resx">
<Generator>PublicResXFileCodeGenerator</Generator>
<LastGenOutput>Messages.Designer.cs</LastGenOutput>
</EmbeddedResource>
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="CallTransformOnBuild" BeforeTargets="CoreCompile">
<CallTarget Targets="TransformDuringBuild" />
</Target>
I only want the transform to run on build if:
Messages.Generated.cs doesn't exist
Messages.tt changed
Messages.resx changed
You need to make sure the following XML Tags' are set to false.
<TransformOnBuild>False</TransformOnBuild>
<OverwriteReadOnlyOutputFiles>False</OverwriteReadOnlyOutputFiles>
My scenario is simple.
I have test project where i want all files within a folder to be marked as embedded resource by default. To prevent someone from doing mistakes here i want this to be automatic through wildcards
I looked at this question, which looked very promising.
MSBuild: Include a custom resource file as embedded resource
However that does not seem to work with the new csproj format. Does anyone know what i should be doing different for it to work with the new format?
My current code is this:
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
<PropertyGroup>
<TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.1</TargetFramework>
<IsPackable>false</IsPackable>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk" Version="15.9.0" />
<PackageReference Include="Shouldly" Version="3.0.2" />
<PackageReference Include="xunit" Version="2.4.0" />
<PackageReference Include="xunit.runner.visualstudio" Version="2.4.0" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CSharp.Workspaces" Version="3.2.1" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.Workspaces.MSBuild" Version="3.2.1" />
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
<CreateItem Include="TestContent\*.cs">
<Output ItemName="EmbeddedResource" TaskParameter="Include" />
</CreateItem>
</Target>
</Project>
You can try this script:
<Target Name="MyCustomStep" BeforeTargets="BeforeBuild">
<CreateItem Include="TestContent\*.cs">
<Output ItemName="EmbeddedResource" TaskParameter="Include" />
</CreateItem>
</Target>
There exists difference between the BeforeBuild Target in old and new csproj format. (Or maybe the difference between .net core and .net framewrok, not sure about this point)
Some discoveries when I set the msbuild verbosity to Detailed:
1.For projects that target .net framework using the old csproj format:
The BeforeBuild target will exactly execute the CreateItem Task. So it works for old-format project files.
2.For projects that target .net core using new sdk format:
The BeforeBuild target seems not to execute the task as what we expected.
After defining the Custom target which executes before the BeforeBuild target, it works in my machine:
I wrote a C# template for creating of the .Net extensions for AutoCAD. Before, for each AutoCAD version it is was necessary to point the individual referenses set, the output directory, the target .Net Framework Platform, etc. Exist many versions of AutoCAD: AutoCAD 2009, 2010, ..., 2015. Now my template do it instead of me. My csproj-file has the CAD_Year property:
<PropertyGroup>
<CAD_Year>2013</CAD_Year>
<Min_Year>2009</Min_Year>
<Max_Year>2015</Max_Year>
</PropertyGroup>
When I change CAD_Year value (manually edit this option in the csproj-file) - all settings of my project do change too according target AutoCAD version. It works fine.
But I need to compile my code for all versions of AutoCAD always... It is inconvenient to change the CAD_Year every time for this... :(((
How can I create the cycle of compiling my project for the versions Min_Year, ..., Max_Year when I press the Rebuild Solution menu item?
Thank you, #stijn. I will mark your answer as a solution. Here I create an "answer" for the code highlighting. My current code works:
<!-- Redefine the CoreClean target, otherwise MSBuild will remove all results
of building except for the last. -->
<Target Name="CoreClean">
<ItemGroup>
<AllFiles Include="$(OutputPath)\*.*" />
</ItemGroup>
<Copy SourceFiles="#(AllFiles)" DestinationFolder="$(OutputPath)\temp" />
</Target>
<Target Name="BatchRebuild">
<ItemGroup>
<CADYearsItem Include="$(BuildFor)" />
</ItemGroup>
<Msbuild Projects="$(MsBuildThisFile)" Targets="Rebuild" Properties="CAD_Year_Platform=%(CADYearsItem.Identity)" />
<ItemGroup>
<AllFilesBack Include="$(OutputPath)\temp\*.*" />
</ItemGroup>
<Move SourceFiles="#(AllFilesBack)" DestinationFolder="$(OutputPath)" />
<!-- Doesn't work for Debug. The $(OutputPath)\temp\ will not removed.
But it work for Release.-->
<RemoveDir Directories="$(OutputPath)\temp\" />
</Target>
I see, the RemoveDir task doesn't work for the Debug for me, but it is not a big problem. Now my template is complete, and I will do refactoring of this. Thank you very much!
If you add this to your project file:
<ItemGroup>
<CADYears Include="2013;2014;2015"/>
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="BatchRebuild">
<Msbuild Projects="$(MsBuildThisFile)" Targets="Rebuild" Properties="CAD_Year=%(CADYears.Identity)"/>
</Target>
and call
msbuild <path_to_projectfile> /t:BatchRebuild
on the commandline, it will build path_to_projectfile 3 times each with a different CAD_Year property.
To get this invoked by VS is trickier since you need to override the Rebuild target, but this for instance works for VS2013 (Actualrebuild target was copied from the Rebuild target in C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\12.0\Bin\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets):
<ItemGroup>
<CADYears Include="2013;2014;2015"/>
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="ActualRebuild"
Condition=" '$(_InvalidConfigurationWarning)' != 'true' "
DependsOnTargets="$(RebuildDependsOn)"
Returns="$(TargetPath)"/>
<Target Name="BatchRebuild">
<Msbuild Projects="$(MsBuildThisFile)" Targets="ActualRebuild" Properties="CAD_Year=%(CADYears.Identity)"/>
</Target>
<Target Name="Rebuild">
<Msbuild Projects="$(MsBuildThisFile)" Targets="BatchRebuild"/>
</Target>
Edit
Since the template system in VS tries to copies ItemGroups it finds in the project root (which seems like a bug to me, or at the least a very annoying feature) you can work around that by using a property and converting it into an item when needed:
<PropertyGroup>
<CADYears>2013;2014;2015<CADYears/>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="BatchRebuild">
<ItemGroup>
<CADYearsItem Include="$(CADYears)"/>
</ItemGroup>
<Msbuild Projects="$(MsBuildThisFile)" Targets="Rebuild" Properties="CAD_Year=%(CADYearsItem .Identity)"/>
</Target>
Note: in the project you posted in the link you are invoking the Rebuild target in the Afterbuild target. I didn't try it, but that will almost certainly lead to infinite recursion. So you should stick to a solution like posted above with a seperate target.
When a C# project references another C# project (e.g. a lib), Visual Studio adds something like this to the project file:
<ItemGroup>
<ProjectReference Include="..\some\path\lib.csproj">
<Project>{4beb6b28-90f5-77c3-af2a-f5fa3336dac9}</Project>
<Name>Lib</Name>
</ProjectReference>
</ItemGroup>
Let’s assume, lib.csproj contains some items like this:
<SpecialFile Include="foo.dll" />
<SpecialFile Inclued="bar.txt" />
How can I access these SpecialFile items in the first project file? I’d like to do something like this:
<Target Name="SpecialFileCopyTarget" AfterTargets="AfterBuild">
<Copy
DestinationFolder="$(OutputPath)"
SourceFiles="#(SpecialFile)" <-- ?????
SkipUnchangedFiles="true" />
</Target>
I think I do not want to Import the lib.csproj, just get the items somehow.
XmlPeek task allows to query any XML file:
<XmlPeek Namespaces="<Namespace Prefix='n' Uri='http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'/>"
XmlInputPath="%(ProjectReference.FullPath)"
Query="/n:Project/n:ItemGroup/n:SpecialFile/#Include">
<Output TaskParameter="Result" ItemName="SpecialFiles" />
</XmlPeek>
This code will collect SpecialFile items from all referenced projects. Please specify ToolsVersion="4.0" for your project.
I have a solution with multiple projects.
However, this solution to compile correctly, I need to compile a sequence of projects that are in the solution folder.
As I have many projects, in each folder, need to dynamically obtain the relationship of project files, eg. Csproj, to compile.
I've tried creating tasks, creating xml editing csproj file, but I get no result.
<PropertyGroup>
<SrcFolder>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\..</SrcFolder>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<PluginProjectsFiles Include="$(SrcFolder)\Folder\SubFolder.*\*.csproj" />
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="BuildPlugins">
<Message Text="Building Plugins" />
<MSBuild Projects="#(PluginProjectsFiles)" Targets="Clean;Build" Properties="Configuration=Release" />
<Message Text="Plugins Built" />
</Target>