Disable Code Analysis for Some Projects using MSBuild - visual-studio-2010

I have inherited a solution file that uses a MSBuild script to compile multiple solutions. The majority of projects are configured with analysis and rulesets and I have a few unit-test projects that don't.
Projects with analysis turned on:
<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|x86' ">
<DebugSymbols>true</DebugSymbols>
<DebugType>full</DebugType>
<DefineConstants>CODE_ANALYSIS;DEBUG;TRACE</DefineConstants>
<Optimize>false</Optimize>
<OutputPath>bin\Debug</OutputPath>
<PlatformTarget>x86</PlatformTarget>
<CodeAnalysisRuleSet>..\OurRules.ruleset</CodeAnalysisRuleSet>
<RunCodeAnalysis>true</RunCodeAnalysis>
</PropertyGroup>
Projects with analysis turned off:
<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|x86' ">
<DebugSymbols>true</DebugSymbols>
<DebugType>full</DebugType>
<DefineConstants>DEBUG;TRACE</DefineConstants>
<Optimize>false</Optimize>
<OutputPath>bin\Debug</OutputPath>
<PlatformTarget>x86</PlatformTarget>
<RunCodeAnalysis>false</RunCodeAnalysis>
</PropertyGroup>
When I run my build script, it looks like some projects are not respecting the project settings:
msbuild.exe BuildScript.proj /p:SolutionRoot=%cd%; /p:Configuration=Debug /p:Platform:x86 /p:RunCodeAnalysis=True
When I check the output folder, I see coverage analysis xml outputs for projects that have the RunCodeAnalysis flag set to false. Can someone help me understand what's going on here?

I figured this out shortly after posting it.
Team Build supports the following values for RunCodeAnalysis: Always, Default, Never.
In contrast, locally MSBuild supports True or False for RunCodeAnalysis.
Why are they different? In looking at the Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets file, the following appears:
<Target Name="CoreCompileSolution">
<PropertyGroup>
<CodeAnalysisOption Condition=" '$(RunCodeAnalysis)'=='Always'">RunCodeAnalysis=true</CodeAnalysisOption>
<CodeAnalysisOption Condition=" '$(RunCodeAnalysis)'=='Never'">RunCodeAnalysis=false</CodeAnalysisOption>
...
</PropertyGroup>
...
</Target>
These settings are then passed onto the msbuild process when it compiles the solution file.
So in other words:
Always tells MSBuild to compile all projects with RunCodeAnalysis=True
Never tells MSBuild to suppress code analysis (RunCodeAnalysis=False) on all projects.
...and not specifying a value for RunCodeAnalysis means that MSBuild will respect the RunCodeAnalysis setting in the project file. Hence, the default setting.
Simply removing the /p:RunCodeAnalysis from my original question had the correct result. Projects that have analysis turned on will run code analysis. Projects without the setting don't perform any extra work.
More information about this is available here: http://www.bryancook.net/2011/06/build-server-code-analysis-settings.html

Change:
<RunCodeAnalysis>false</RunCodeAnalysis>
To:
<RunCodeAnalysis>Never</RunCodeAnalysis>
... and see if that solves your problem. Valid values for RunCodeAnalysis are either {Default,Always,Never} or {True,False}, depending on how you build.
See: Item 12 of How to: Edit a Build Type for more info.
Also, see this article for inconsistencies in the settings of RunCodeAnalysis, depending on how you build: Inconsistent RunCodeAnalysis values

Related

The OutputPath property is not set for project ... / VS arbirtrarily changing configuration of projects in solution from Debug to Release

Last last week I started having an issue with every solution I've tried to build with Visual Studio. I was using VS 2019 and our organization had just pushed down some windows updates (not sure if that's related) but after the updates I was on VS 2019 version 16.8.4, .Net version 4.8.03752.
Whenever I try to build one of our solutions (I tried 3 different solutions after doing a free pull from the main branch of our repo) I get over 1000 errors which seem to be cascade errors from the OutputPath property not being set which seems to be related to several of the projects being arbitrarily changed from Debug to Release even though the solution is set to Debug | Any CPU.
Furthermore, if I examine the build tab on the project properties (or examine them in configuration manager) NO DEBUG CONFIGURATION IS SHOWN AS AVAILABLE. If I close Visual Studio it prompts to me save changes and if I do a comparison shows that it did indeed change the configuration of several projects form Debug to Release.
I have reproduced this on 2 separate machines, with fresh installs of Visual Studio 2019 (and 2017) and pulling fresh code from the repos. Other developers in my org an build the solutions just fine and their configurations show Debug | Any CPU across the board (i.e. I seem to be the only person in the world having this problem and I'm having it on every machine I've tried and with multiple versions of Visual Studio).
I also see errors saying that projects contains nuget references that are "missing" but if I restore nuget pacakges I get a messages saying they are all installed and there is nothing to restore. I also see the "missing" packages in the packages folder.
We use relative paths for the packages so it can't be the typical literal-path issue some people have. Besides which, my folder structure hasn't changed and we all use the same folder structure in our ord.
I am completely at a loss as to what to try next. My googlefoo has completely failed me in this regard.
I'm desperately hoping someone in the Stack Exchange world can offer a solution.
Thanks,
Greg.
Please check if your project's csproj file has missed these content:
You could directly add these at the bottom of the csproj file:
<PropertyGroup>
<Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration>
<Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">AnyCPU</Platform>
</PropertyGroup>
<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' ">
<PlatformTarget>AnyCPU</PlatformTarget>
<DebugSymbols>true</DebugSymbols>
<DebugType>full</DebugType>
<Optimize>false</Optimize>
<OutputPath>bin\Debug\</OutputPath>
<DefineConstants>DEBUG;TRACE</DefineConstants>
<ErrorReport>prompt</ErrorReport>
<WarningLevel>4</WarningLevel>
</PropertyGroup>
<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Release|AnyCPU' ">
<PlatformTarget>AnyCPU</PlatformTarget>
<DebugType>pdbonly</DebugType>
<Optimize>true</Optimize>
<OutputPath>bin\Release\</OutputPath>
<DefineConstants>TRACE</DefineConstants>
<ErrorReport>prompt</ErrorReport>
<WarningLevel>4</WarningLevel>
</PropertyGroup>
After that, delete bin and obj folder.
Then, run update-package -reinstall under Tools-->Options-->Nuget Package Manager--> Package Manager Console to reinstall all nuget packages.

Is OutputPath a required field in every PropertyGroup?

My projects appear to all have three <PropertyGroup> items.
One:
<PropertyGroup>
<Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration>
<Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">AnyCPU</Platform>
Two: <PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' ">
Three: <PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Release|AnyCPU' ">
FinalBuilder has been failing. When I go into the project file and add <OutputPath>bin\Debug\</OutputPath> to the first element in the .csproj file (an MSBuild file as I understand it), the build succeeds.
The remaining two elements already have <OutputPath> defined.
Is this a required field for all three elements? Why is it missing from the first element in my project files?
When MSBuild compiles a project, it takes OutputPath as an argument, to where it should place the build output.
The .csproj file has some default settings. It's in the first <PropertyGroup>.
In the conditional PropertyGroups, there are specific properties, to different configurations and platforms:
<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Release|x86' ">
Properties inside this node overwrites the default one, so it can specialize the build.
To hit the different PropertyGroups, MSBuild takes some argument, for example, hitting "Release|x86", the command looks like this:
msbuild /p:Configuration="Release" /p:Platform="x86"
MSBuild will use the properties from the default PropertyGroup, and overwrite/use properties from the PropertyGroups that meet the conditions, in this example "Release|x86" to compile the code.
Your problem sounds like MSBuild does not have the right arguments to evaluate the right PropertyGroups.

Develop and run MSTest unit tests in Visual Studio 2010 without including .vsmdi and .testsettings

I know this is somehow possible, as we have a project that contains MSTest unit tests that are runnable via the VS2010 test runner. We can even add new test methods or classes to the existing projects, and the runner will pick them up and include them in the test run.
The problem comes when I try to add a new unit test project to the solution. If I add a project of the type "test project" to the solution, VS2010 will generate the test metadata and settings files that were not needed for running any of the other tests in the other projects. This is undesirable, for example, for an OSS project. If I simply add a normal "class library" project, and put unit tests in it, the test runner ignores them, and I cannot get it to recognize them at all.
Am I crazy? Is this a fluke? Should it even be possible for VS2010 to run the tests we have, without having a .vsmdi file or a .testsettings file? Or am I missing a setting or configuration that's required in order to make this work for new projects?
You can indeed run tests within VS without having the .vsmdi and .testsettings files (infact, you can just delete them after adding the test project)
So why doesnt it work with a normal class library? the awnser lies inside the .csproj file.
This is a regular class library:
<PropertyGroup>
<Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration>
<Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">AnyCPU</Platform>
<ProductVersion>8.0.30703</ProductVersion>
<SchemaVersion>2.0</SchemaVersion>
<ProjectGuid>{F191EC72-AFDF-49CE-A918-01905E7C32EF}</ProjectGuid>
<OutputType>Library</OutputType>
<AppDesignerFolder>Properties</AppDesignerFolder>
<RootNamespace>test</RootNamespace>
<AssemblyName>test</AssemblyName>
<TargetFrameworkVersion>v4.0</TargetFrameworkVersion>
<FileAlignment>512</FileAlignment>
</PropertyGroup>
And this is a test project:
<PropertyGroup>
<Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration>
<Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">AnyCPU</Platform>
<ProductVersion>8.0.30703</ProductVersion>
<SchemaVersion>2.0</SchemaVersion>
<ProjectGuid>{F191EC72-AFDF-49CE-A918-01905E7C32EF}</ProjectGuid>
<OutputType>Library</OutputType>
<AppDesignerFolder>Properties</AppDesignerFolder>
<RootNamespace>test</RootNamespace>
<AssemblyName>test</AssemblyName>
<TargetFrameworkVersion>v4.0</TargetFrameworkVersion>
<FileAlignment>512</FileAlignment>
<ProjectTypeGuids>{3AC096D0-A1C2-E12C-1390-A8335801FDAB};{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}</ProjectTypeGuids>
</PropertyGroup>
That last element, ProjectTypeGuids is what tells VS that its a project that you can run MSTest tests on. these guids are always the same as far as i know, [at least given the same version of VS] so you should be able to paste that line into any .csproj file and have VS recognize the tests inside.
The test settings file can be useful to specify options for deployment (and alot of other things) but most of the options can also be specified at the command line to mstest.exe
The .vsmdi can also be replaced by adding attributes to your test methods. most if not all options available in the Properties for a test can be set as attributes as well as in the vsmdi file. i generally prefer the attributes as they are 'closer' to the code.

How do I change the build folders in VS2010?

I'm getting an error in a VS2010 DB project that indicates I have too many charachters in my build path.
How can I change my default build path for all project types?
Something like
c:\build\$(projectname)\......
Thanks!
EDIT:
I've moved my project to the root of the C: drive and I still get the error with my DB project. I get this error when I try to right click the project and select properties
An error occurred trying to load the project properties window. Close the window and try again.
Cannot evaluate the item metadata "%(FullPath)". The item metadata "%(FullPath)" cannot be applied to the path "obj\Debug|Any CPU\TASS.DB.dbschema". Illegal characters in path. C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Microsoft.Common.targets
The first thing that jumps out to me here is that your platform and configuration are being fused together to form "Debug|Any CPU" and a string is being made from that--the pipe is the character it's referencing there when it says there are illegal characters. I'm not sure how much your database project really differs with respect to debug/release and for architecture, but you may not even need to include them in the path.
Since you can't open the project property pages, you'll need to edit the msbuild directly by unloading it and selecting "Edit..." from the context menu (sorry if you know this already).
From there, assuming you're realling running up on the windows path length ceiling, you could use some msbuild trickery to maximize your headroom in there. Specifically, doing something similar to what you suggest: use the C:\ drive wherever possible.
To do this, look inside the PropertyGroups with the conditions for your Configuration & Platform configurations, and inside them replace the OutputPath and IntermediateOutputPath properties so that they're as short as possible, for example:
<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU'">
<OutputPath>$(SystemDrive)\D\A</OutputPath>
<IntermediateOutputPath>$(SystemDrive)\o\D\A</IntermediateOutputPath>
</PropertyGroup>
This saves some valuable characters in that instead of "Debug" you're using "D", "A" for "AnyCPU" and "o" for "obj".
Probably most importantly you're using C:\o\ for the intermediate build directory instead of C:\whatever-the-whole-path-is-to-your-project-file\obj. As well, this property isn't configurable from the property pages, from what I recall.
Some added flexibility there using SystemDrive instead of a hard-coded C:, not that I would really expect it to be different.
Finally, concerning your property pages load problem, I don't know how the Debug|AnyCPU got in your path (I don't know of any properties that store the concatenated flavor like that), but you should be able to pick it out pretty easily once you open up the file. Hopefully it's similar to load errors in something like the winforms designer where you change one line and suddenly the whole thing works again.
Hope this helps!
I don't think it's possible to set a default build path for all projects, only the standard Debug/Release folders within the project itself. The only suggestion I would have is to simply move the project folder to location with a shorter path.
EDIT: As per the new edit, have a look here:
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/594333/database-project-template-files-corrupt
I updated a project from VS 2005 to VS 2010 and got the same error message.
"The item metadata "%(Filename)" cannot be applied to the path "obj\Debug|x86\Debug\DemoCSharp.pdb". Illegal characters in path." The problem is that Visual Studio 2010 fails in converting the csproj file to the new format, but it does not tell us where exactly the error is.
In my VS 2005 csproj file there is the following XML code:
<PropertyGroup>
<Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration>
<Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">Debug|x86</Platform>
<ProductVersion>8.0.50727</ProductVersion>
<SchemaVersion>2.0</SchemaVersion>
<ProjectGuid>{05F88317-0CA7-4FE5-8520-35422402941A}</ProjectGuid>
<OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
<RootNamespace>DemoCSharp</RootNamespace>
<AssemblyName>DemoCSharp</AssemblyName>
</PropertyGroup>
<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|x86' ">
<DebugSymbols>true</DebugSymbols>
<OutputPath>..\output32\</OutputPath>
<DefineConstants>DEBUG;TRACE</DefineConstants>
<DebugType>full</DebugType>
<PlatformTarget>x86</PlatformTarget>
<ErrorReport>prompt</ErrorReport>
</PropertyGroup>
<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Release|x86' ">
<OutputPath>..\output32\</OutputPath>
<DefineConstants>TRACE</DefineConstants>
<Optimize>true</Optimize>
<DebugType>pdbonly</DebugType>
<PlatformTarget>x86</PlatformTarget>
<ErrorReport>prompt</ErrorReport>
</PropertyGroup>
<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|x64' ">
<DebugSymbols>true</DebugSymbols>
<OutputPath>..\output64\</OutputPath>
<DefineConstants>DEBUG;TRACE</DefineConstants>
<DebugType>full</DebugType>
<PlatformTarget>x64</PlatformTarget>
<ErrorReport>prompt</ErrorReport>
</PropertyGroup>
<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Release|x64' ">
<OutputPath>..\output64\</OutputPath>
<DefineConstants>TRACE</DefineConstants>
<Optimize>true</Optimize>
<DebugType>pdbonly</DebugType>
<PlatformTarget>x64</PlatformTarget>
<ErrorReport>prompt</ErrorReport>
</PropertyGroup>
Visual Studio does NOT tell us which line produces the problem. But I found it by "try and error".
The cause of the error message is clearly a bug in the Visual Studio conversion wizard because VS 2005 has no problem loading this csproj file while VS 2010 fails to convert it.
So you have to manually edit and fix this file and then load it anew in VS2010.
In my case the line that triggers the bug is the 3. line with <Platform Condition. The bug is that VS tries to take the value ("Debug|x86") of this platform condition XML node and embed it into a path on disk (like "...\obj\Debug|x86\..."). But as pipe characters are illegal in paths, it later complains and aborts the conversion.
So how to solve the problem ?
I simply replaced the third line
<Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">Debug|x86</Platform>
with
<Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">Debug</Platform>
which eliminates the pipe character and the project converted without errors.
NOTE: It is also possible to completely delete this line.
ATTENTION:
It is possible that in YOUR case the same error messages needs another fix than in my case. Please study the csproj file and look for the pipe characters, then find out with try and error how to modify it. This error can even appear in other conditions than converting a project.
But what they all have in common is that this is a Visual Studio bug (or in case of 'littlechris' a software extension bug) that tries to embed a pipe character into the path.
XML node: "Debug|x86" -> path "...\obj\Debug|x86\..."
I received this messeage because the absolute path of one of the files in my project exceeded 260 characters. Once I reduced the path length, I was able to build the project.

Visual Studio: differentiate app.config for debug and release mode

Is there a way to automatically use a separate app.config when building in release mode?
In other words, I want to test with one app.config, and release with another.
Currently, I keep a separate copy called app.config.production, and manually overwrite bin\Release\Application.exe.config after building for release.
Unload the project in Solution Explorer via the context menu.
Edit the .csproj file via the context menu and add this:
<PropertyGroup>
<AppConfig>App.$(Configuration).config</AppConfig>
</PropertyGroup>
I have recently posted a supremely belated response to a similar SO topic:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/27546685/2798367
I will repeat it here for clarity:
This is somewhat late to the party, but I stumbled upon a nice way of implementing the web.transform approach for app.config files. (i.e. it makes use of the namespace http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform)
I think it is "nice" because it is a pure xml approach and doesn't require 3rd party software.
A parent / default App.config file is descended from, according to your various build configurations.
These descendants then only override what they need to.
In my opinion this is much more sophisticated and robust than having to maintain x number of config files which get copied in their entirety, such as in other answers.
A walkthrough has been posted here: http://mitasoft.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/multipleappconfig/
Look, Mom - No explicit post-build events in my IDE!
A clean solution is to group 2 files App.Debug.config and App.Release.config into App.config and change the good file into App.config depending on the configuration at compile time:
<ItemGroup>
<None Include="App.config" />
<None Include="App.Debug.config">
<DependentUpon>App.config</DependentUpon>
</None>
<None Include="App.Release.config">
<DependentUpon>App.config</DependentUpon>
</None>
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="SetAppConfig" BeforeTargets="Compile">
<Copy SourceFiles="App.Debug.config" DestinationFiles="App.config" OverwriteReadOnlyFiles="true" Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == 'Debug' " />
<Copy SourceFiles="App.Release.config" DestinationFiles="App.config" OverwriteReadOnlyFiles="true" Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == 'Release' " />
</Target>
With this solution you will get something like this in Visual Studio:
A simple and fast way is to create a second file "App.release.config" and insert this pre-build event:
IF $(ConfigurationName) == Release COPY /Y "$(ProjectDir)App.config" "$(ProjectDir)App.debug.config"
IF $(ConfigurationName) == Release COPY /Y "$(ProjectDir)App.release.config" "$(ProjectDir)App.config"
And this post build event:
IF $(ConfigurationName) == Release COPY /Y "$(ProjectDir)App.debug.config" "$(ProjectDir)App.config"
This might be a bit odd, but it will allow you to keep using the .Settings files as debug settings, that are still linked to the App.config. The App.release.config must be build by hand, but it's pretty easy to switch this functionality.
I highly recommend SlowCheetah for app.config transformations. Visit this nuget gem here Visual Studio Gallery
Similar to top answer but with this approach you can see the actual file if preferred and intellisense doesn't complain in csproj file:
<Target Name="SetAppConfig" BeforeTargets="Compile">
<Copy SourceFiles="debug.config" DestinationFiles="app.config" OverwriteReadOnlyFiles="true" Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' " />
<Copy SourceFiles="release.config" DestinationFiles="app.config" OverwriteReadOnlyFiles="true" Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Release|AnyCPU' " />
</Target>
I don't know if this helps, but app.config will recognise the standard MSBUILD substitution strings such as $(Configuration).

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