In the project I've inherited, the original developer used a number of post-build events in his Visual Studio projects to copy around DLL's and stuff when building inside VS.
This is causing some grief now that I'm trying to move these things to the TFS 2010 Build system.
I was hoping to be able to create a new "Continuous" project configuration, and exclude those post-build events from Visual Studio in that configuration - but it seems those calls aren't configurable based on your project configuration....
Any ideas? Is there something I could check for to know I'm running under TFS Build and then just skip those CMD files? Any ideas would be most welcome!
My approach is to guard the pre- or post-build code with this
IF "$(BuildingInsideVisualStudio)"=="true" (
…your code here…
)
That variable is automatically defined by Visual Studio and you do not need to change the build definition.
I use a similar approach to do this. I add the following to each project's post-build steps:
if '$(TeamBuild)'=='True' exit 0
Then when configuring the Build Definition I simply add:
/p:TeamBuild=True
...to the MSBuild Arguments.
This gives me the flexibility to keep all the configuration in the projects and the build definition.
What if you set an environment variable on your team build server, and then you could write a check into your post build steps to check for that environment variable. If the environment variable is set, you'd know to skip the command files that do the post build steps because you'd know you are running under TFS build.
You could combine all your post build steps into one script possibly, and then just check the environment variable at the beginning of that script.
Or you may be able to do it the opposite way and build the check into your TFS build script. You can refer here for how to check an environment variable in a TFS build.
So in your TFS build script you'd have something like:
<RunScripts Condition=" '$(RunScriptsServerVar)' != '' ">
the environment var is NOT set, so run your scripts since we aren't in
a TFS build
</RunScripts>
Related
I want to execute a post-build script from TFS which copies a folder in my TFS to the Build drop location.
I have very little knowledge of how to do this.
Kindly provide with the code.
I am using VS2015, tfs 2015.
i also have VS 2013, TFS 2013
TFS 2015 Build has an out of the box template 'Visual Studio' that already does this using the PublishBuildArtifacts task.
Look at leveraging this task in your build def in order to accomplish what you are looking for.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/Library/vs/alm/Build/steps/utility/publish-build-artifacts
https://github.com/Microsoft/vso-agent-tasks/tree/master/Tasks/PublishBuildArtifacts
In XAML build, you can check in your script, and specify a post-build script path in your XAML build definition.
This script gathers some of the typical binary types from the typical locations and copies them to the folder from which TFBuild copies and drops to your staging location. Check more information about Run a script in your XAML build process at website: https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/dn376353%28v=vs.120%29.aspx
In vNext build, you can simply add a PublishBuildArtifacts task as Mr. Kraus mentions. About how to use this task, check: http://www.codewrecks.com/blog/index.php/2015/06/30/manage-artifacts-with-tfs-build-vnext/
I am currently trying to set up a automated publish using MSBuild and am now realizing that it produces a different output when doing it from MSBuild instead of Visual Studio. I am not sure what I am missing here, but for some reason it is copying different project files into the route web project directory.
Is there a way to simulate a Visual Studio Publish using MSBuild? I am currently doing this with an Orchard Project, figured that would be worth mentioning.
Here is the command I am currently using to do this:
/p:PublishProfile="exampleprofile";DeployOnBuild=true;VisualStudioVersion=12.0;
FrameworkPathOverride="C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v4.5";
PublishProfileRootFolder=%WORKSPACE%\src\Orchard.Web\Properties\PublishProfiles;
Password=ExamplePass;Configuration=Release
As far as I can understand, you're trying to simulate a ClickOnce publish using a manual msbuild routine. You can achieve that by calling msbuild with the correct parameters. To simulate the ClickOnce, the target publish is available for you.
msbuild MyProj.csproj /t:Publish
Given your specifications, you have to be able to run multiple publish configurations, each one having its own output settings. To be able to run multiple profiles, I would recommend that you abandon the PublishProfile attribute (I never understood how to get it to work) and switch to the BuildEnvironment as showed here :
https://wallism.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/msbuild-and-multiple-environments/
(Focus on the "Setting up the customizations" part)
You have to adapt your call to msbuild to include your build environment
msbuild MyProj.csproj /t:Publish /p:BuildEnvironment=MyConfig
Just for a little test, for you to know if this is useful, follow the tutorial, create your target, and add a
<PropertyGroup>
<PublishUrl> Add a custom path here </PublishUrl>
<InstallUrl> Add the same path here </InstallUrl>
</PropertyGroup>
to your target file.
Run then the msbuild and let me know if you solved your problem
I want to execute a postbuild command after every build, no matter what project in my solution has changed.
To accomplish this in Visual Studio 2010, I made one empty project depend on every other project, so it always got built, executing its postbuild command. However, Visual Studio 2012 (RC) appears to recognize that the dependency is not real, and will not build this empty project automatically.
I do not see any way to specify a solution postbuild script in solution settings. How can I accomplish this?
I have solved this issue by making my post-build script also delete the output (bin**) of this "empty" project, forcing a rebuild of this project every time. It appears to work satisfactorily so far.
This works (for details see original post):
you may need to change security settings (at your own risk) e.g.: https://stackoverflow.com/a/60284384/2705777
In Visual Studio 2008 we run a post build event which calls NANT and in turn creates our config files.
e.g.
if $(SolutionDir) == . GOTO end
nant -buildfile:$(SolutionDir)default.build create..web.config
Is there a way to run this only on ReBuild?
I think you can do this by specifying build targets rather than using build events. Try creating an AfterClean target to delete your generated config files, and a BeforeBuild target to create them. Make sure you set up the file dependency for the BeforeBuild target, so msbuild knows it should only run the step if the file isn't present.
I haven't actually tried this, but I beleive msbuild will only run the target if the target files don't exist. When you rebuild, the cleaning process will be invoked, and in turn your AfterClean target.
You can read more about build targets here. The only real downside to using build targets instead of events is that they are not visible anywhere in the VS UI - you will only find them if you inspect the project file.
There may be a more direct solution involving events - have look at the msbuild team blog here.
I'm a solo developer running Visual Studio 2008 and looking into MSBuild to improve my build process.
Almost all of the tutorials I've found so far have plenty of information about writing a build file. However I'm having a lot of trouble finding out how to integrate MSBuild into Visual Studio. Maybe MSBuild is only used with something like CruiseControl but that's overkill for me as a single developer.
Where should the build file live in a Visual Studio project and how can I run it from within the IDE?
Visual Studio executes MSBuild automatically for projects it supports.
If you right click on a project and unload it, you can then edit it in Visual Studio. Reload (right click on project again), force a (re)build to test your changes. An alternative is to edit the project file in an external editor and Visual Studio will detect saves and offer to reload the project for you.
Sounds like you're on the right track, and if you are considering writing Targets or custom MSBuild Tasks, take the time to separate them from your current project so that you can re-use them. Don't re-invent the wheel though, the two main complementary MSBuild projects are MSBuild Community Tasks and MSBuild Extension Pack.
Update: Judging from your comment on Mitch's answer, you might also want to consider adding a new Configuration element or custom properties to a project. A new MSBuild Configuration (something other than the default Debug/Release) could run unit tests, build documentation, or whatever you want automated. A custom MSBuild property would allow you to use normal Debug/Release Configuration and extend it to automate more of your build process, just depends on what you want. Either approach could also be driven from the command line.
As others have noted, MSBuild is already available when you install Visual Studio.
If you want to integrate into VS2008: Running MSBuild from Visual Studio
MSBuild is the build engine used by Visual Studio to process the files included in a project.The Visual Studio project files themselves (**.csproj* for C#, and .vbproj for VB, for example) are in fact MSBuild scripts that are run every time you build a project.
Your .csproj file is a MSBuild file. So you are actually using it already.
You may of course wish to create a separate build file to have more control, especially within a continuous integration or nightly build say.
If you simply wish to edit your project build file then you can use the IDE to edit some settings such as pre and post build actions or edit the Xml itself by unloading project and right click and editing.
You can use your current .vcproj files to build your project with MSBuild. However, as MSBuild is not directly supported (at least for vc++) vcbuild is used instead (internally).
In VS2010 all project files are MSBuild based...
This is an older article about some simple extension points from the msbuild team
How To: Insert Custom Process at Specific Points During Build
Also, don't forget you can use the MSBuild SideKick for developing and debugging your (local) msbuilds, available for free at http://www.attrice.info/msbuild/
I'd suggest you call msbuild as a post build step. Then you can put your build script somewhere in your solution and call it.
<windowsdir>\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\MSBuild.exe c:\temp\MyProject\mybuildfile.proj
The easiest way is probably to invoke your custom build script using a post-build step. Right click project, choose "Build Events" and call msbuild with your custom msbuild file from there.
I use the msbuild template to intergrate with visual studio
http://msbuildtemplate.codeplex.com/