I am using Microsoft Ajax Minifier to convert file1.js to file1.min.js. Now I would like to take file1.min.js and file2.min.js and merge them into files-merged.min.js.
I have found several open source msbuild projects but with no documentation on how to use them!
I am using Visual Studio 2010, is this something Ajax Minifier can do, if not do you have any tips on how to do it?
I want this to be an automated process, something done each time I build the solution.
Within MSBild solution you can use at the least three approaches.
Execute copy command (simply to understand and support, may affects
build performance in case of much calls perfomed);
Use ReadLinesFromFile/WriteLinesToFile msbuild tasks (simply enough, but resulting file will lose formatting)
Use .NET File.ReadAllText/WriteLinesToFile (good result, but may be complicated in some cases)
Executing copy command
To merge with copy command you should add something like this into your target:
<Exec Command="COPY /b file1.min.js + file2.min.js files-merged.min.js" />
In most cases it should be enough.
Using ReadLinesFromFile/WriteLinesToFile msbuild tasks
<ItemGroup>
<SourceFiles Include="file1.min.js;file2.min.js" />
</ItemGroup>
<ReadLinesFromFile File="%(SourceFiles.Identity)">
<Output TaskParameter="Lines" ItemName="FileLines" />
</ReadLinesFromFile>
<WriteLinesToFile File="files-merged.min.js" Lines="#(FileLines)" Overwrite="true" />
This example illustrates how to use native msbuild facilities to merge both files. Unfortunately, in that case we're loosing file formatting.
Using .NET File.ReadAllText() and msbuild WriteLinesToFile
<ItemGroup>
<SourceFiles Include="arrays.cmd;cp.cmd" />
<FileLines Include="$([System.IO.File]::ReadAllText(%(SourceFiles.Identity)))" />
</ItemGroup>
<WriteLinesToFile File="test.out" Lines="#(FileLines)" Overwrite="true" />
This approach fast and accurate, but uses some kind of .NET injection.
I did it by following this article:
http://encosia.com/2009/05/20/automatically-minify-and-combine-javascript-in-visual-studio/
I would prefer not to use the JSMin tool as I already have AJAX Minifier so I use JSMin just to merge the files. Can Minifier handle the merging of files?
C:\Progra~1\Microsoft\Micros~1\AjaxMin.exe js1.js js2.js -o jscombine.js -clobber
Related
Has anyone had any success with running StyleCop from TeamCity?
I know StyleCop supports a command line mode, however i am not sure how this will integrate into the report output by TeamCity.
I've checked out this plugin found here: https://bitbucket.org/metaman/teamcitydotnetcontrib/src/753712db5df7/stylecop/
However could not get it running.
I am using TeamCity 6.5.1 (latest).
I don't know how familiar you are with MSBuild, but you should be able to add a new Build Step in TC 6 and above, and set MSBuild as the build runner, and point it to a .proj file which does something similar to the following:
<Target Name="StyleCop">
<!-- Create a collection of files to scan -->
<CreateItem Include="$(SourceFolder)\**\*.cs">
<Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="StyleCopFiles" />
</CreateItem>
<StyleCopTask
ProjectFullPath="$(MSBuildProjectFile)"
SourceFiles="#(StyleCopFiles)"
ForceFullAnalysis="true"
TreatErrorsAsWarnings="true"
OutputFile="StyleCopReport.xml"
CacheResults="true" />
<Xslt Inputs="StyleCopReport.xml"
RootTag="StyleCopViolations"
Xsl="tools\StyleCop\StyleCopReport.xsl"
Output="StyleCopReport.html" />
<XmlRead XPath="count(//Violation)" XmlFileName="StyleCopReport.xml">
<Output TaskParameter="Value" PropertyName="StyleCopViolations" />
</XmlRead>
<Error Condition="$(StyleCopViolations) > 0" Text="StyleCop found $(StyleCopViolations) broken rules!" />
</Target>
If you don't want to fail the build on a StyleCop error, then set the Error task to be Warning instead.
You'll also need to add the following to your .proj file:
<UsingTask TaskName="StyleCopTask" AssemblyFile="$(StyleCopTasksPath)\Microsoft.StyleCop.dll" />
Microsoft.StyleCop.dll is included in the StyleCop installation, and you'll need to set your paths appropriately.
To see the outputted StyleCop results in TeamCity, you will need to transform the .xml StyleCop report to HTML using an appropriate .xsl file (called StyleCopReport.xsl in the script above).
To display the HTML file in TeamCity, you'll need to create an artifact from this .html output, and then include that artifact in the build results.
The Continuous Integration in .NET book is a great resource.
Did you know that teamcity provides specific properties just from msbuild?
No need for the service messages, see:
http://confluence.jetbrains.net/display/TCD65/MSBuild+Service+Tasks
So you dont have to add a custom report page.
Use the build stats e.g.
<TeamCitySetStatus Status="$(AllPassed)" Text="Violations: $(StyleCopViolations)" />
you can then log the statistic too:
<TeamCityReportStatsValue Key="StyleCopViolations" Value="$(StyleCopViolations)" />
And then create a custom graph to display, and you already have the violations in your msbuild output.
edit main-config.xml and add:
<graph title="Style Violations" seriesTitle="Warning">
<valueType key="StyleCopViolations" title="Violations" buildTypeId="bt20"/>
</graph>
Where buildTypeId="bt20" bt20 is your style build.
I'm late to the show here but a very easy way to achieve this is to install the StyleCop.MSBuild NuGet package in any project which you want to analyse with StyleCop.
After installing the package, StyleCop analysis will run on every build you do, regardless of where or how it is invoked, e.g VS, command line, msbuild, psake, rake, fake, bake, nant, build server, etc. No special actions are required.
If you want the build to fail when StyleCop rules are broken you just need to add the following element to your project file under each appropriate build configuration, E.g.
<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' ">
<StyleCopTreatErrorsAsWarnings>false</StyleCopTreatErrorsAsWarnings>
...
Again, this will work on every build, regardless of where and how it is invoked.
There's a (new?) third-party TeamCity plugin for StyleCop here, (though I haven't tried it yet).
UPDATE: as far as I can tell, the latest version only works with TeamCity 7 (or I did something wrong). Also, I have a very slow (virtual) build server, so even after the services were restarted, it took a while for the StyleCop runner to appear in the web interface.
Another stupid thing I did was not read the readme properly: you have to unzip the downloaded zip, and use the zip inside.
I also originally started with just a list of .cs files in the "Include" option (for the build step), but that didn't work; links to sln or csproj files do work though.
Folks,
In a nutshell, I want to replicate this dialog:
It's a Visual Studio 2010 ASP.Net MVC project. If I execute this command, I get all the files I want, including the transformed web.configs in the "C:\ToDeploy" directory.
I want to replicate this on the command line so I can use it for a QA environment build.
I've seen various articles on how to do this on the command line for Remote Deploys, but I just want to do it for File System deploys.
I know I could replicate this functionality using nAnt tasks or rake scripts, but I want to do it using this mechanism so I'm not repeating myself.
I've investigated this some more, and I've found these links, but none of them solve it cleanly:
VS 2008 version, but no Web.Config transforms
Creates package, but doesn't deploy it..do I need to use MSDeploy on this package?
Deploys package after creating it above...does the UI really do this 2 step tango?
Thanks in advance!
Ok, finally figured this out.
The command line you need is:
msbuild path/to/your/webdirectory/YourWeb.csproj /p:Configuration=Debug;DeployOnBuild=True;PackageAsSingleFile=False
You can change where the project outputs to by adding a property of outdir=c:\wherever\ in the /p: section.
This will create the output at:
path/to/your/webdirectory/obj/Debug/Package/PackageTmp/
You can then copy those files from the above directory using whatever method you'd like.
I've got this all working as a ruby rake task using Albacore. I am trying to get it all done so I can actually put it as a contribution to the project. But if anyone wants the code before that, let me know.
Another wrinkle I found was that it was putting in Tokenized Parameters into the Web.config. If you don't need that feature, make sure you add:
/p:AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false
I thought I'd post a another solution that I found, I've updated this solution to include a log file.
This is similar to Publish a Web Application from the Command Line, but just cleaned up and added log file. also check out original source http://www.digitallycreated.net/Blog/59/locally-publishing-a-vs2010-asp.net-web-application-using-msbuild
Create an MSBuild_publish_site.bat (name it whatever) in the root of your web application project
set msBuildDir=%WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319
set destPath=C:\Publish\MyWebBasedApp\
:: clear existing publish folder
RD /S /Q "%destPath%"
call %msBuildDir%\msbuild.exe MyWebBasedApp.csproj "/p:Configuration=Debug;PublishDestination=%destPath%;AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=False" /t:PublishToFileSystem /l:FileLogger,Microsoft.Build.Engine;logfile=Manual_MSBuild_Publish_LOG.log
set msBuildDir=
set destPath=
Update your Web Application project file MyWebBasedApp.csproj by adding the following xml under the <Import Project= tag
<Target Name="PublishToFileSystem" DependsOnTargets="PipelinePreDeployCopyAllFilesToOneFolder">
<Error Condition="'$(PublishDestination)'==''" Text="The PublishDestination property must be set to the intended publishing destination." />
<MakeDir Condition="!Exists($(PublishDestination))" Directories="$(PublishDestination)" />
<ItemGroup>
<PublishFiles Include="$(_PackageTempDir)\**\*.*" />
</ItemGroup>
<Copy SourceFiles="#(PublishFiles)" DestinationFiles="#(PublishFiles->'$(PublishDestination)\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)')" SkipUnchangedFiles="True" />
</Target>
this works better for me than other solutions.
Check out the following for more info:
1) http://www.digitallycreated.net/Blog/59/locally-publishing-a-vs2010-asp.net-web-application-using-msbuild
2) Publish a Web Application from the Command Line
3) Build Visual Studio project through the command line
My solution for CCNET with the Web.config transformation:
<tasks>
<msbuild>
<executable>C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe</executable>
<workingDirectory>E:\VersionesCC\Trunk_4\SBatz\Gertakariak_Orokorrak\GertakariakMS\Web</workingDirectory>
<projectFile>GertakariakMSWeb2.vbproj</projectFile>
<targets>Build</targets>
<timeout>600</timeout>
<logger>C:\Program Files\CruiseControl.NET\server\ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.MSBuild.dll</logger>
<buildArgs>
/noconsolelogger /p:Configuration=Release /v:diag
/p:DeployOnBuild=true
/p:AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false
/p:DeployTarget=Package
/p:_PackageTempDir=E:\Aplicaciones\GertakariakMS2\Web
</buildArgs>
</msbuild>
</tasks>
On VS2012 and above, you can refer to existing publish profiles on your project with msbuild 12.0, this would be equivalent to right-click and publish... selecting a publish profile ("MyProfile" on this example):
msbuild C:\myproject\myproject.csproj "/P:DeployOnBuild=True;PublishProfile=MyProfile"
I've got a solution for Visual Studio 2012: https://stackoverflow.com/a/15387814/2164198
However, it works with no Visual Studio installed at all! (see UPDATE).
I didn't checked yet whether one can get all needed stuff from Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web installation.
A complete msbuild file with inspiration from CubanX
<Project ToolsVersion="3.5" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<Target Name="Publish">
<RemoveDir Directories="..\build\Release\Web\"
ContinueOnError="true" />
<MSBuild Projects="TheWebSite.csproj"
Targets="ResolveReferences;_CopyWebApplication"
Properties="Configuration=Release;WebProjectOutputDir=..\build\Release\Web;OutDir=..\build\Release\Web\bin\"
/>
</Target>
<Target
Name="Build"
DependsOnTargets="Publish;">
</Target>
</Project>
This places the published website in the Web..\build\Release folder
I want to merge one .NET DLL assembly and one C# Class Library project referenced by a VB.NET Console Application project into one command-line console executable.
I can do this with ILMerge from the command-line, but I want to integrate this merging of reference assemblies and projects into the Visual Studio project. From my reading, I understand that I can do this through a MSBuild Task or a Target and just add it to a C#/VB.NET Project file, but I can find no specific example since MSBuild is large topic. Moreover, I find some references that add the ILMerge command to the Post-build event.
How do I integrate ILMerge into a Visual Studio (C#/VB.NET) project, which are just MSBuild projects, to merge all referenced assemblies (copy-local=true) into one assembly?
How does this tie into a possible ILMerge.Targets file?
Is it better to use the Post-build event?
The "MSBuild ILMerge task" (or MSBuild.ILMerge.Task) NuGet package makes this process quite simple. It defaults to merging any "copy local" references into your main assembly.
Note: Although the packages have similar names, this one is different from ILMerge.MSBuild.Tasks that Davide Icardi mentioned in his answer. The one I'm suggesting here was first published in August 2014.
Here an alternative solution:
1) Install ILMerge.MSBuild.Tasks package from nuget
PM> Install-Package ILMerge.MSBuild.Tasks
2) Edit the *.csproj file of the project that you want to merge by adding the code below:
<!-- Code to merge the assemblies into one:setup.exe -->
<UsingTask TaskName="ILMerge.MSBuild.Tasks.ILMerge" AssemblyFile="$(SolutionDir)\packages\ILMerge.MSBuild.Tasks.1.0.0.3\tools\ILMerge.MSBuild.Tasks.dll" />
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<ItemGroup>
<MergeAsm Include="$(OutputPath)$(TargetFileName)" />
<MergeAsm Include="$(OutputPath)LIB1_To_MERGE.dll" />
<MergeAsm Include="$(OutputPath)LIB2_To_MERGE.dll" />
</ItemGroup>
<PropertyGroup>
<MergedAssembly>$(ProjectDir)$(OutDir)MERGED_ASSEMBLY_NAME.exe</MergedAssembly>
</PropertyGroup>
<Message Text="ILMerge #(MergeAsm) -> $(MergedAssembly)" Importance="high" />
<ILMerge InputAssemblies="#(MergeAsm)" OutputFile="$(MergedAssembly)" TargetKind="SameAsPrimaryAssembly" />
</Target>
3) Build your project as usual.
Some more information that might be useful to some people implementing Scott Hanselman's solution.
When I first set this up it would complain about not being able to resolve references to System.Core, etc.
It is something to do with .NET 4 support. Including a /lib argument pointing to the .NET 4 Framework directory fixes it (in fact just include the $(MSBuildBinPath)).
/lib:$(MSBuildBinPath)
I then found that IlMerge would hang while merging. It was using a bit of CPU and a lot of RAM but wasn't outputting anything. I found the fix on stackoverflow of course.
/targetplatform:v4
I also found that some of the MSBuild properties used in Scott's blog article relied on executing MsBuild from the project's directory, so I tweaked them a bit.
I then moved the targets & ilmerge.exe to the tools folder of our source tree which required another small tweak to the paths...
I finally ended up with the following Exec element to replace the one in Scott's original article:
<Exec Command=""$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)Ilmerge.exe" /lib:$(MSBuildBinPath) /targetplatform:v4 /out:#(MainAssembly) "$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\#(IntermediateAssembly)" #(IlmergeAssemblies->'"%(FullPath)"', ' ')" />
UPDATE
I also found Logic Labs answer about keeping the CopyLocal behaviour and just excluding ilMerged assemblies from CopyLocal essential if you are using Nuget packages. Otherwise you need to specify a /lib argument for each package directory of referenced assemblies that aren't being merged.
The article Mixing Languages in a Single Assembly in Visual Studio seamlessly with ILMerge and MSBuild at http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MixingLanguagesInASingleAssemblyInVisualStudioSeamlesslyWithILMergeAndMSBuild.aspx demonstrates how to use ILMerge and MSBuild within a Visual Studio Project.
One issue I found with the article at: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MixingLanguagesInASingleAssemblyInVisualStudioSeamlesslyWithILMergeAndMSBuild.aspx.
If you have any references that you do not wish to ILMerge then the code in the article fails because it overrides the default CopyLocal behaviour to do nothing.
To fix this - Instead of:
<Target Name="_CopyFilesMarkedCopyLocal"/>
Add this entry to the targets file instead (.NET 3.5 only) (to filter out the non-ilmerge copylocal files, and treat them as normal)
<Target Name="AfterResolveReferences">
<Message Text="Filtering out ilmerge assemblies from ReferenceCopyLocalPaths" Importance="High" />
<ItemGroup>
<ReferenceCopyLocalPaths Remove="#(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths)" Condition="'%(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths.IlMerge)'=='true'" />
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
This is a great article that will show you how to merge your referenced assemblies into the output assembly. It shows exactly how to merge assemblies using msbuild.
My 2 cents - I picked up #Jason's response and made it work for my solution where I wanted to generate the *.exe in the bin/Debug folder with all *.dlls inside the same folder.
<Exec Command=""$(SolutionDir)packages\ILMerge.2.13.0307\Ilmerge.exe" /wildcards /out:"$(SolutionDir)..\$(TargetFileName)" "$(TargetPath)" $(OutDir)*.dll" />
Note: This solution is obviously hardcoded into the ILMerge nuget package version. Please let me know if you have some suggestions to improve.
Edit the *.csproj file of the project that you want to merge by adding the code below:
<Target Name="AfterBuild" Condition=" '$(ConfigurationName)' == 'Release' " BeforeTargets="PostBuildEvent">
<CreateItem Include="#(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths)" Condition="'%(Extension)'=='.dll'">
<Output ItemName="AssembliesToMerge" TaskParameter="Include" />
</CreateItem>
<Exec Command=""$(SolutionDir)packages\ILMerge.3.0.29\tools\net452\ILMerge.exe" /internalize:"$(MSBuildProjectPath)ilmerge.exclude" /ndebug /out:#(MainAssembly) "#(IntermediateAssembly)" #(AssembliesToMerge->'"%(FullPath)"', ' ')" />
<Delete Files="#(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths->'$(OutDir)%(DestinationSubDirectory)%(Filename)%(Extension)')" />
</Target>
Notes:
Replace $(SolutionDir)packages\ILMerge.3.0.29\tools\net452\ILMerge.exe with whatever path you have the ILMerge.exe in.
You can remove the Condition in the target to also merge on Debug but then the Debugger might not work
If you are not excluding anything you can remove: /internalize:"$(MSBuildProjectPath)ilmerge.exclude"
Check out this article by Jomo. He has a quick process to hack ILMerge into the msbuild system
http://blogs.msdn.com/jomo_fisher/archive/2006/03/05/544144.aspx
I need to know how to tell MSTEST to run all test projects in a solution file. This needs to be done from the command line. Right now I have to pass it a specific project file, I'm trying to get it to run from a SOLUTION file.
I'm hoping this is possible, because in Visual Studio, hitting Ctrl+R, A, runs ALL tests in the currently opened solution.
The way I've interpretted the help files, you have to pass in each DLL specifically.
I want to run this from the command line from my CruiseControl.NET server, so I can write other utilities to make this happen. If there is a wierd way of getting this to happen through some OTHER method, let me know.
How do I tell MSTEST to run all test projects for a solution?
<exec>
<!--MSTEST seems to want me to specify the projects to test -->
<!--I should be able to tell it a SOLUTION to test!-->
<executable>mstest.exe</executable>
<baseDirectory>C:\projects\mysolution\</baseDirectory>
<buildArgs>/testcontainer:testproject1\bin\release\TestProject1.dll
/runconfig:localtestrun.Testrunconfig
/resultsfile:C:\Results\testproject1.results.trx</buildArgs>
<buildTimeoutSeconds>600</buildTimeoutSeconds>
</exec>
To elaborate on VladV's answer and make things a bit more concrete, following the suggested naming convention running your tests can be easily be automated with MSBuild. The following snippet from the msbuild file of my current project does exactly what you asked.
<Target Name="GetTestAssemblies">
<CreateItem
Include="$(WorkingDir)\unittest\**\bin\$(Configuration)\**\*Test*.dll"
AdditionalMetadata="TestContainerPrefix=/testcontainer:">
<Output
TaskParameter="Include"
ItemName="TestAssemblies"/>
</CreateItem>
</Target>
<!-- Unit Test -->
<Target Name="Test" DependsOnTargets="GetTestAssemblies">
<Message Text="Normal Test"/>
<Exec
WorkingDirectory="$(WorkingDir)\unittest"
Command="MsTest.exe #(TestAssemblies->'%(TestContainerPrefix)%(FullPath)',' ') /noisolation /resultsfile:$(MSTestResultsFile)"/>
<Message Text="Normal Test Done"/>
</Target>
Furthermore integrating MsBuild with CruiseControl is a piece of cake.
Edit
Here's how you can 'call' msbuild from your ccnet.config.
First if you do not already use MSBuild for your build automation add the following xml around the snippet presented earlier:
<Project DefaultTargets="Build"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
..... <insert snippet here> .....
</Project>
Save this in e.g. RunTests.proj next to your solution in your source tree. Now you can modify the bit of ccnet.config above to the following:
<msbuild>
<executable>C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\MSBuild.exe</executable>
<workingDirectory>C:\projects\mysolution\</workingDirectory>
<baseDirectory>C:\projects\mysolution\</baseDirectory>
<projectFile>RunTests.proj</projectFile>
<targets>Test</targets>
<timeout>600</timeout>
<logger>C:\Program Files\CruiseControl.NET\server\ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.MsBuild.dll</logger>
</msbuild>
This is an old thread, but I have been struggling with the same issue and I realized that you can really just run MSTest on every dll in the whole solution and it doesn't really cause any problems. MSTest is looking for methods in the assemblies marked with the [TestMethod] attribute, and assemblies that aren't "test" assemblies just won't have any methods decorated with that attribute. So you get a "No tests to execute." message back and no harm done.
So for example in NAnt you can do this:
<target name="default">
<foreach item="File" property="filename">
<in>
<items>
<include name="**\bin\Release\*.dll" />
</items>
</in>
<do>
<echo message="${filename}" />
<exec program="C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\MSTest.exe">
<arg value="/testcontainer: ${filename}" />
<arg value="/nologo" />
</exec>
</do>
</foreach>
</target>
and it will run all the test methods in every dll in every bin\Release folder in the solution. Those which are not test dlls will return a "No tests to execute." and those that have tests will have the tests run. The only part I haven't figured out yet is that (in NAnt) execution stops the first time a command returns a non-zero value. So if any unit tests fail it doesn't keep going to execute any tests in subsequent assemblies. That is not great, but if all the tests pass, then they will all run.
I just resolve this problem recently. Here is my proposal: Use testmetadata + testlist option of mstest
First you should create a testlist in testmetadata file(vsmdi)
the commandline should be mstest /testmetadata:....vsmdi /testlist:<name>
Then use ccnet config to run mstest
i know this thread is quite Old, but its still high on Google so i thought i might help one or two.
Anyway, since there is no satisfactory solution for this.
I've written an msbuild task for this.
details can be found here:
http://imistaken.blogspot.com/2010/08/running-all-tests-in-solution.html
You could enforce some convention on the naming and location of test projects, then you could run MSTest on, say, all *Test.dll below the location of your solution.
As far as I know, there is no way to tell a test project from a 'normal' DLL project based soleley on a solution file. So, an alternative could be to analyze the project files and/or .vsmdi files to find the test projects, but that could be rather tricky.
I don't know directly but this is where VSMDI [fx:spits in a corner] can help. In your solution add all the tests to the VSMDI. And then pass the VSMDI to mstest using /testmetadata.
However I would suggest that you follow the conventions above. And use a naming convention and dump that out from the SLN file using say a for loop in the command script
I would just write a target that calls it the way you want, then whip up a batch file that calls the target that contains all the DLL's to be tested.
Unless you're adding test projects all the time, you'll very rarely need to modify it.
Why not just have msbuild output all the test assemblies to a folder.
Try setting OutputPath,OutputDir,OutDir properties in msbuild to accomplish this.
then have mstest execute against all assemblies in that folder.
I've added a pre-build action for an ASP.NET web control (server control) project, that runs jsmin.exe on a set of Javascript files. These output files are part of the source control tree and are embedded into the assembly.
The problem is when the pre-build runs, jsmin can't write the file as it's readonly. Is it possible to check the file out before hand? Or am I forced to set the file's attributes in the command line.
Any improved solution to the problem is welcome.
Update
One small issue with Mehmet's answer -you need to prepend the VS directory:
"$(DevEnvDir)tf" checkout /lock:none "$(ProjectDir)myfile"
If you're using Team Foundation Server, you can use team foundation command line utility (tf.exe) to check out the file(s) during pre-build and then check them back in during post-build. If you're using something else for source control, you can check if they have a command line tool like tf.exe.
If you do not want to check the files in as part of the build (which you normally wouldn't for this sort of thing) then I would simply set the attributes of the .js files before running jsmin on them. The easiest way of setting the files read-writeable is to use the the Attrib task provided by the MSBuild community extensions. The same community extensions also provide a JSCompress task for easily calling JSMin from MSBuild.
Therefore you'd have something like the following (not tested):
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\MSBuildCommunityTasks\MSBuild.Community.Tasks.Targets" />
<!-- rest of TFSBuild.proj file -->
<Target Name="AfterGet">
<Message Text="Compressing Javascript files under "$(SolutionRoot)"." />
<CreateItem Include="$(SolutionRoot)\**\*.js">
<Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="JsFiles"/>
</CreateItem>
<Attrib Files="#(JsFiles)" ReadOnly="false"/>
<JSCompress Files="#(JsFiles)" />
</Target>
Note that by modifying the files after getting them may well cause issues if you tried to move to an incremental build.