Does anybody know, on a per project basis, whether you can set the WebProjectOutputDir in Visual Studio. I want to be able to have it so that when i hit Ctrl + Shift + B it automatically builds my web project to a specific directory, but I also need to be able to override this in my build script.
It is unnecessarily awkward to correctly do this based on the way that Microsoft.WebApplications.targets defines the _CopyWebApplication target and how Microsoft.Common.targets treats the OutDir and OutputPath properties.
If you want to change that in the project file itself then you should:
Declare the property WebProjectOutputDir after the import to Microsoft.WebApplications.targets
Declare the property OutDir before the import to Microsoft.WebApplications.targets
There are a few reasons why you have to do this.
Microsoft.WebApplications.targets will override any declaration of WebProjectOutputDir if it is declared before the import statement. Therefore it has to come after.
Also inside of Microsoft.WebApplications.targets the _CopyWebApplication is defined as follows:
<Target Name="_CopyWebApplication" Condition="'$(OutDir)' != '$(OutputPath)'" >
....
</Target>
Taking a look at the condition you will see that the target will not be executed if OutDir and OutputPath are equal to the same value. You cannot just change OutputPath because OutDir is based on OutputPath, so you have to change OutDir and make sure that it is before the import to that file because other properties are built based on that property.
Less than ideal, but hopefully that helps you.
I ran into this when using Visual Studio for Mac, compiling an Umbraco project. Building would issue the following error:
Error MSB4044: The "KillProcess" task was not given a value for the
required parameter "ImagePath"
It was returning an empty value for WebProjectOutputDir when compiling Rosyln, etc. Only the web project in the solution was compiling these items, so I edited the web project csproj file manually, and added the following to the global at the top of the file:
...
<WebProjectOutputDir>.\</WebProjectOutputDir>
</PropertyGroup>
Problem solved.
Related
Context: setting up the Assembly Name/Default namespace in the Project Properties (right click on project, Properties, Application tab; or edit the .csproj).
I would like to add a parameter there to explicitly have them following the Project Name, plus some custom suffix. So if I rename my project, the Assembly name/namespace follow that rename.
Example: project named foo → foo_suffix.dll. If I rename the project to foo1 → foo1_suffix.dll.
Same behaviour for the namespace.
Reading Common macros for MSBuild commands and properties,
I tried inputting $(ProjectName) both in VS and in the .csproj file, but I get a .dll named exactly like that.
How can I get this done?
How can I get this done?
1. Try using $(MSBuildProjectName) property from this document.
You're developing a C# project(csproj) while your document above is about macros in C++ projects(vcxproj). So I think $(MSBuildProjectName) property can be more suitable for you after my several tests.
(I tried $(ProjectName), but it only worked well when I set something like <AssemblyName>$(ProjectName)</AssemblyName>, if I add a suffix like $(ProjectName)_suffix, the output sometimes is _suffix.dll. But it always work well if I use $(MSBuildProjectName)!)
I get the desired behaviour, but that is inconsistent with what I can
see in project, Properties, Application tab.
2. Try reloading the project file(Right-click project, unload.., reload...) to Update the UI.
From your comment, it seems like the $(ProjectName)_suffix works well in your machine? If so, you can still use $(ProjectName) property.
What you experienced is expected behavior for Msbuild and VS. VS will read value from csproj during project loading process. Then it display the related value by UI.
So after we rename the project name and then build the project, we can get a ProjectName_suffix.dll in output folder. But the UI is still not changed(inconsistent), cause now we need to Update the UI.
You can right-click project node, unload the project=>reload the project to get UI updated. And now the output xx.dll can be consistent with what you see in project, Properties, Application tab. It needs us to reload the project each time after you rename the project, then the UI would be consistent with your xx.dll. And actually it won't affect your build though the UI is not updated, the output can be your desired behaviour.
3. All above is more related to the relationship between Assembly Name and Project Name. One point you should know is msbuild(csproj) won't modify the source files(xx.cs) after the project is created.
So assuming you have a Class1.cs file whose namespace is Library. If you rename the project to NewLibrary, reload the project and you can see the Namespace is NewLibrary now in project, Properties, Application tab. But the namespace for Class1.cs file is still old Library. This is expected behavior in VS, and the new NameSpace NewLibrary would work if you create a new xx.cs file.
Hope all above helps :)
I added a filter and some .c files to my .vcxproj through the GUI but they won't build correctly because I'm in the process of adding all the correct environment variables.
Is it possible to temporarily exclude from the build a filter and its children?
As the name says, 'filter' is just view filter and has no effect on build system, thus, there is no easy way. You can only modify project and source files properties ('Excluded from build' of cpp in your case).
But... there is a workaround, which makes you edit all cpp files only once and works for all build configurations.
Create props file (View->Other Windows -> Property manager, right mouse button on your project and 'Add new...') and in User Macros add TempExclude with value 'Yes'
Now select all problematic files and in Excluded from Build type $(TempExclude) (Don't forget to select All Configurations and All Platforms)
Now you can edit just value of TempExclude in property file to get you files in/out build. If you dont define TempExclude it will include files into build.
Usually, visual studio puts output files to bin/debug or bin/release.
When solution contains a large number of projects its not easy to modify each project output manually.
Also edits in csproj files no desirable, because some of them is shared between solutions..
My questions: Is anybody knows a tool, which can quickly configure output path ?
UPDATE: my problem solved by TFS Build
Presumably you have at least one project in each solution that is unique to that solution. In the Post-Build event of that, copy the contents of each project's output to the required location.
We often to this using a batch file. It's crude but effective. In our project that's unique to the solution we create a Release.bat file. This contains a number of file copies to copy all of the required components from the various output directories of the other projects. You can then just run the batch file in the post build event. We usually copy everything to a "Latest Release" fodler when the solution is built. If this becomes a proper release we will rename the Latest Release folder to the actual release number.
If you have multiple build configurations, or even just use the Debug and Release configurations, you can use an If statement in the Post-Build event to decide which batch file to run. So you could create a Debug.bat, Release.bat etc which do what you need. It can be tedious to set them up and get them working correctly at first, but they are very useful once fully implemented.
Customize your project using the msbuild properties which you can do if you follow these steps:
Go to the solution explorer and unload one project by right clicking on it and select Unload Project.
Then right click again on the unloaded project and select Edit Project. This will open the XML definition of your project, and you will have intellisense for the layout which will help you perform the next steps.
In the visual studio editor find the first PropertyGroup tag and add these lines near or at the end of the closing PropertyGroup tag:
<SolutionDir Condition="$(SolutionDir) == '' Or $(SolutionDir) == '*Undefined*'">..\</SolutionDir>
<BuildDirectory Condition="$(BuildDirectory) =='' or $(BuildDirectory) == '*Undefined*'">$(SolutionDir)\build\</BuildDirectory>
The above SolutionDir is defined in msbuild properties which you can obtain using this answer: msbuild script using solution information and also check out the well known msbuild properties here
The next step is to find the OutputPath tag for each configuration and edit it like this:
<OutputPath>$(BuildDirectory)\x86\AutomatedDebug\</OutputPath>
The example above assumes you have a configuration named AutomatedDebug with destination platform x86.
The output will be
x:\projects\whereever-your-solution-is\build\x86\AutomatedDebug\
Repeat for each project.
To unload more than one project, collapse all projects in the solution explorer and shift click or ctrl click to select all or some projects, then right click on the selected group to unload, unfortunately you cannot do this for editing, at least in visual studio 2010.
I am the first to admit that this is somewhat cumbersome to do for existing projects, but you could easily create a visual studio project template that has these settings changed so that new projects will use a more convenient default output directory.
You cannot edit the output directory directly in visual studio because the project properties editor escapes any $() enclosed text.
Also you could only modify the OutputPath using the name of a system environment variable enclosed in $(). This last option is to enable a global output directory.
If you build any single project modified in this way using msbuild directly in the commandline the output directory will be created one directory above from where you ran msbuild
..\build\x86\AutomatedDebug
If you are in a team, you should warn them not to edit the output directory directly by hand, as this action will overwrite any customization.
Hope this info is useful.
Greetings.
I'm trying to build gtest on Visual Studio 2010. After converting the solution file, I tried to build, and I got the following warning messages.
Warning 1 warning MSB8012:
TargetPath(C:\Users\sucho\Desktop\gtest-1.5.0\msvc\gtest/Debug\gtest.lib) does not match
the Library's OutputFile property value (C:\Users\sucho\Desktop\gtest-1.5.0\msvc\gtest\
Debug\gtestd.lib).
This may cause your project to build incorrectly.
To correct this, please make sure that $(OutDir), $(TargetName) and $(TargetExt) property
values match the value specified in %(Lib.OutputFile).
C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\Microsoft.CppBuild.targets
The message says I need to setup variables $(OutDir), $(TargetName) and $(TargetExt), together with property values specified in %(Lib.OutputFile).
How can I do that with Visual Studio (especially VS 2010)?
I see it. Right-click the gtest project, Properties, Configuration properties, General. Ensure that the Debug configuration is selected (upper left combo). Change the Target Name property to
$(ProjectName)d
Note the added "d" to change the name from gtest to gtestd. The warning is otherwise benign.
I think no one has the right answer, i solved this way: in project properties pages, check if linker->General->Output file match configuration properties->General->target name & configuration properties->General->target extension.
You don't need to add any 'd', of course, is more simple set to Inherit from parent or project defaults, for all 3 variables.
Example:
Linker → General → Output File = "myproject.exe"
then:
Configuration Properties → General → Target Name = "myproject"
configuration properties → General → Target Extension = ".exe"
The warning is spurious -- assuming you're using Google Test, it works just fine
You can make it go away however. Right click on the offending project and select properties. Select "Librarian" in the tree view on the left hand side, and change the "Output File" item on the right by clicking on the box next to output file, and selecting "Inherit from parent or project defaults".
The background to this is that Microsoft changed the meaning of the $(TargetName) macro. It used to mean "whatever filename you put in Linker | Output File, minus the extension". They changed it to "by default, the name of your project". (This is something you should never do, in my view; they should have added a new macro).
Whereas VS2008 and earlier were able to parse the file name out of the Linker setting, apparently they were not able to parse it out in the migration to newer versions, leaving our configurations broken.
The warning itself is probably not important, but if you use $(TargetName), say by passing it to a batch file, this change will break your batch process.
For us, the solution has been to copy the file name (minus extension) from Linker | Output File to General | Target Name, and then set Linker | Output File to "inherit from parent/default". This is because we use suffixes like "d" (for debug), "u" for Unicode, _64 for 64-bit and so forth.
On the other hand, if your output file always matches the name of the project, then all you need to do is set Linker | Output File to "inherit default" and you're done, in principle - providing that the output directory you want for your compiled file matches General | Output Directory.
This change is absolutely infuriating because it involves moving literally hundreds of settings around, all due to sheer laziness on Microsoft's part, as far as I can see.
I was just trying to compile an application in Visual Studio 2019 that I had last compiled in Visual Studio 2005. I encountered the same warning.
I thought I would show what I did visually with screen shots.
Solution Name v Target Name
As you can see, my variables were both set to Import Text:
I could have just set the $(TargetName) to ImportText to solve my issue. However, we will leave those values as they are.
Linker / General Output File
This is how I had the output file setup:
Notice that I had overridden the output target name as ImportText. This was over 10 years ago and I did not have as much experience.
General / Target Name
So all I had to do was make the same adjustment here:
Now it compiles file.
This kind of errors typically arise when upgrading old project to new version of Visual Studio (like in your case to VS2010) and also if project settings may have been manually changed (for example changing executable name). We know VS2010 uses these macros $(ProjectName) $(TargetName) $(OutDir) $(TargetExt) to control release/debug outputs but it is often mystery where to change them. We than typical resort to changing the name of output files directly through Project >> Properties. This means we now have to change the output files separately for debug and release build and if there was any dependencies, we will get error like This may cause your project to build incorrectly..
These macros/properties are VS2010 defaults but you can set them yourself in .vcproj files by editing it in notepad. Note search first for the property in the .vcproj file first, if its there than change its value, if not define it like below.
<PropertyGroup Label="My Values">
<ProjectName>New_Project_Name</ProjectName>
</PropertyGroup>
Above I have defined a new <property group> to keep these values but you can define them anywhere. I define this at the top of the file right after debug/release configuration group so its visible everywhere. Make sure your project properties are setup properly to use them correctly (they should be what is VS2010 default settings). If you have changed them you should copy it from new test project. You can of course add the other Macros you want to set values for in the above group as well.
You can also verify the new values of this macros through project properties. For example click in Configuration Properties >> General and than in 'Target Name' box. Select edit. It will bring up a dialog box with the button 'MACROS >>'. Click that and it will show you what the value of each macro is. It should correctly reflect the new values that you set in .vcproj file.
Just as Hans Passant posted, you need to modify the TargetName property manually. This is different between VS2005/2008 and VS2010. Please refer to http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vcprerelease/thread/3c03e730-6a0e-4ee4-a0d6-6a5c3ce4343c
I'm using Visual Studio 2008 and would like to create a sort of container project that holds a number of DLL's that must be installed with a solution. I want them to be in a separate project so that they can be easily attached to a solution as a group.
I created an empty project call TEST, added my DLL's to it with a Build Action of "Content", and set them to "Copy Always". That all works exactly as I want. The problem is that if I set the TEST project Output Type to "Console Application" or "Windows Application" that it won't build because there's no entry point. If I set the Output Type to "Class Library", it builds but I end up with an extra TEST.DLL file that I don't really want.
Is there anyway to sort of set the Output Type to "none"? I want the build actions to take place (so my DLL's get copied) but I don't want the dummy class assembly created. Any ideas?
Thanks!
Assumptions for the following step-by-step guide:
Let's assume that you have a solution with two projects:
Main: your main (start-up) project.
BundledDLLs: a library project which contains the .dlls that should end up in the main project's output directory.
Step-by-step guide:
The easiest way to achieve your goal inside Visual Studio is probably the following:
Add all .dlls to BundledDLLs and set their Copy to output directory to Copy if newer.
This is done in the Project Explorer and the Properties windows.
Configure BundledDLLs's output directory to be identical to Main's output directory.
This can be done in the Build tab of BundledDLL's Project Properties page. Enter something like the following in the Output Path textbox:
..\Main\bin\Debug
Set up BundledDLLs as a dependency of Main.
Do not add BundledDLLs as a project reference to Main, as you usually might; instead, use the Project Dependencies dialog to . This will tell the build tool that whenever Main is built, BundledDLLs needs to be built first.
Do this by right-clicking on the Main project node to open the context menu; select Project dependencies... from there. In the now opened dialog, first select Main from the drop-down list; then check BundledDLLs in the project list below. BundledDLLs is now registered as a dependency of Main.
P.S.: One disadvantage of not having an explicit assembly reference in Main is that some tooling might not recognise the dependency. For example, ClickOnce deployment might not work properly.
Add a post-build event to BundledDLLs that deletes the superfluous BundledDLLs.dll.
As you said, you don't want, and don't need, the dummy output generated when BundledDLLs is built. So add a post-build event that simply deletes this .dll once it's been created.
Open the Build events tab in BundledDLLs's Project Properties page, and enter something like the following in the post-build textbox:
DEL "$(TargetDir)\$(TargetName).*"
(In case you wondered: The reason why you didn't add this project as a project reference to Main earlier is because if you had done so, Main would be looking for BundledDLLs.dll, which it wouldn't be able to find since you don't actually want such a file to be generated.)
P.S.: One disadvantage of adding such a post-build step is that it might interfere with incremental builds. If your project keeps getting recompiled from scratch after this, you might be better off removing the post-build step and living with the extra BundledDLLs.dll in your solution's output directory.
Another option is to use a makefile project, which doesn't require you to build/link anything.
In your project properties (right click property in solution explorer and click "Properties"), under "Configuration Properties" and then under "General", choose "Makefile" from the "Configuration Type" drop-down menu. The build output will include the warning "The property 'NMakeBuildCommandLine' doesn't exist...Skipping" but the build will succeed without building any dll/exe/etc.
While other answers here may better address your specific need, specifying a makefile more directly answers the question title "Possible to create Visual Studio project with Output Type of none?" I hope this is useful for people who google something to that effect and land here.
Credit goes to Xeek in the #winapi freenode irc channel for sharing this tip.
Instead of putting them in a project, you can put the files in a Solution Folder. One of your projects can have a build action that does the copying, but since they won't be in a project, they won't try to "build".