How can I make a project file (VS 2008) that just has some data files in and has no built output?
I can make an empty project and add my data files to it (which get copied to the output folder
), but it produces an EmptyProject.dll after I do a build. I want just my data files in the output directory and not some empty DLL or EXE.
I want the data files to be the only thing in this project as the project will be shared in a couple of solutions.
Our application is C#. All of our normal code projects are C#.
The data files are schemas (XSD). I want these schemas to be in the output folder, but I don't want them included with an existing project. I would like a project named "Schemas" that has nothing in except the XSD files and does nothing except copy the XSD files to the output folder. I would like this in a project file so that the same schemas project can be referenced in multiple solutions.
I don't know of a way to suppress the creation of the .dll file. BUT... here's an easy workaround. In the project properties, Build Events tab, write a Post-build event command line that will delete the file. Something like:
del path\filename.dll
Expanding on Scott's answer:
Create a new project of type Empty project
In Properties->Application, change Output type to Class Library
In Properties->Build->Advanced, change Debug Info to None
In Properties->Build Events, set the Post-build event command line to del $(TargetPath)
That way, the project creates only a DLL, which gets deleted. At the same time, the "copy to output directory" settings on your data files is respected.
Possibly another way is editing the csproj file by replacing this:
<Import Project="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />
with this:
<Target Name="Build" />
<Target Name="Rebuild" />
Then builds don't create anything. It worked for me.
Same general idea should work for any xxproj file. Just replace the <Import Project...> tags with the <Target...> tags.
I'd be interested in knowing if this causes any issues or doesn't work for anyone.
What do you need a project for if you're not building it?
You can use solution folders to "store" files...
Why not just disable building this project for all configurations (use the Configuration Manager) - that way it won't build.
Great stuff. Expanding on Scott > Daniel's answer:
Safe to remove all References and Properties (AssemblyInfo.cs)
If it is a node/grunt/gulp project then you can invoke it in your Build Events > *Post-build event command line * eg: gulp build or gulp clean
Perhaps you can add removal or obj and bin output folders to your node/grunt/gulp clean scripts mitigating the need for del $(TargetPath)
Related
In a C# csproj project, AppendTargetFrameworkToOutputPath and AppendRuntimeIdentifierToOutputPath prevent msbuild from creating subfolders for target framework and runtime in the build output directory. However, the configuration name is still appended.
Is there a configuration option to prevent a separate subfolder for each configuration?
So I figured out a solution to this. When editing the project settings in Visual Studio, it modifies the <BaseOutputPath> element in the XML project file. Simply change the element name to <OutputPath> instead, and it won't append the configuration name (and as you said, add <AppendTargetFrameworkToOutputPath>false</AppendTargetFrameworkToOutputPath> and <AppendRuntimeIdentifierToOutputPath>false</AppendRuntimeIdentifierToOutputPath> to disable appending target framework and runtime identifier).
As an example, I have the following in a <PropertyGroup> in a C# project:
<OutputPath>$(SolutionDir)Build\$(Configuration)\Plugins</OutputPath>
<AppendTargetFrameworkToOutputPath>false</AppendTargetFrameworkToOutputPath>
<AppendRuntimeIdentifierToOutputPath>false</AppendRuntimeIdentifierToOutputPath>
For a debug build, this will output the build files to <SolutionDir>\Build\Debug\Plugins.
I'm having an issue with MSBuild ZipDirectory command, where the zipped output file differs between when built by individual project and when built for entire solution.
For example,
The expected zip file looks like below:
A.txt
B.txt
C.txt
The zipped file looks as expected when built as individual project.
However,
When solution is build as a whole,
The zipped file looks like below, missing some files:
A.txt
B.txt
What is causing such issue??
MSBuild ZipDirectory Output Different when Building Solution and
Building Individual Project
I wonder if you use ZipDirectory task to compress some certain files in your project. I have tested the command in different projects in the same solution and did not face the same issue as you said. So please check this:
1) If you just compress some content files in the project, try to create a new folder in Solution Explorer called resource and then put any files you want to compress into this. And remember to set this target executes after build process.
<Target Name="ZipOutputPath" AfterTargets="Build">
<ZipDirectory
SourceDirectory="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\resource"
DestinationFile="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\output.zip" />
</Target>
2) If you want to compress the files of the output folder, please make sure that you have set Copy to Output Directory of the specific files to Copy if newer.
Note :please check if there are some extra targets which will delete some files like C.txt or there is some extra condidtions to limit this.
Build Solution means that it can build all the projects at the same time so I wonder if some extra projects have some configuration which will cause this behavior in the first project.
3) Besides, you can also try zip task to realize this:
<Target Name="zipfiles" AfterTargets = "Build">
<ItemGroup>
<ZipFiles Include="xxxxx\A.txt" />
<ZipFiles Include="xxxxx\B.txt" />
<ZipFiles Include="xxxxx\C.txt" />
</ItemGroup>
<Zip OutputFilename="$(OutputPath)Project.zip" Files="#(ZipFiles)" />
</Target>
In addition, if all of these did not help, there might be a situation where you might have a problem with your VS environment. Due to it, you can follow these steps:
A) close VS instance, delete .vs hidden folder under the solution path,bin and obj folder. Then restart your solution and then build again to see whether the issue persists.
B) use devenv /safemode to start VS and then test whether the issue is caused by third party extensions, packages.
C) do a repair in VS Installer.
If I misunderstand your issue, please share more detailed info and feel free to let us know.
I am debugging a bug in my build process that happens occasionally but I can't directly reproduce it. I'm using msbuild with teamcity.
I have a dependency hierarchy like this:
Some.Interop.dll
Dependency-> SharedDllABC.dll
SomeService.exe
Depenendcy-> Some.Interop
Usually the final service exectuable gets in its release directory:
Some.Interop
SharedDllABC.Dll
ServiceExectuable.exe
However I can see in our msbuild logs that sometimes the tertiary dependency gets deleted during an Incremental Clean after everything is built resulting in:
Some.Interop
ServiceExectuable.exe
You can see it here in the msbuild log:
[src\SomeService\SomeService.csproj] _TimeStampAfterCompile
[12:32:43]: [src\SomeService\SomeService.csproj] Compile
// some other targets
[12:32:43]: [src\SomeService\SomeService.csproj] _CopyFilesMarkedCopyLocal
[12:32:43]: [_CopyFilesMarkedCopyLocal] Copy
[12:32:43]: [Copy] Copying file from "C:Projects\trunk\src\Some.Interop\bin\Release\Some.Interop.dll" to "bin\Release\Some.Interop.dll".
// some other targets
[src\Project\SomeService\SomeService.csproj] IncrementalClean
[18:54:42]: [IncrementalClean] Delete
[18:54:42]: [Delete] Deleting file "C:\Projects\trunk\src\Project\SomeService\bin\Release\SharedDllABC.dll".
[18:54:42]: [Delete] Deleting file "C:\Projects\trunk\src\Project\SomeServiceService\bin\Release\SharedDllABC.pdb".
[18:54:42]: [src\Project\SomeService\SomeService.csproj] CoreBuild
[18:54:42]: [src\Project\SomeService\SomeService.csproj] AfterBuild
[18:54:42]: [src\Project\SomeService\SomeService.csproj] Build
This is my direct msbuild output, I just changed the project names/dll names to match my example. By the time this Incremental Clean has occurred the SomeService.csproj has already been built. You can see that its not getting copied. However in other msbuild logs it does properly get copied and then the incremental clean doesn't delete it.
I think incrementeal clean from this post is supposed to clean dll's that were created from previous builds, but that doesn't explain how this dll didn't get built when most of the time it does. In visual studio this always works as well.
I guess I just want to know what exactly is Incremental clean, what causes it to kick in, and maybe what things I should look for when debugging a situation like this (assembly versions, timestamps, etc?)
Try the following:
Add:
<Target Name="IncrementalClean" />
to a .targets file that's included in all projects.
From --> https://github.com/Microsoft/msbuild/issues/1054
#Kebabbi recommends a good fix by editing a csproj file. As of MSBuild 15, there is a simple way to make this apply to all CSPROJ files, instead of editing each csproj file.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/msbuild/customize-your-build?view=vs-2017
Directory.Build.props and Directory.Build.targets
Prior to MSBuild version 15, if you wanted to provide a new, custom property to projects in your solution, you had to manually add a reference to that property to every project file in the solution. Or, you had to define the property in a .props file and then explicitly import the .props file in every project in the solution, among other things.
However, now you can add a new property to every project in one step by defining it in a single file called Directory.Build.props in the root folder that contains your source. When MSBuild runs, Microsoft.Common.props searches your directory structure for the Directory.Build.props file (and Microsoft.Common.targets looks for Directory.Build.targets). If it finds one, it imports the property. Directory.Build.props is a user-defined file that provides customizations to projects under a directory.
Create a file Directory.Build.props, and place it adjacent to the SLN file.
<Project>
<Target
Name="ForceAssignProjectConfigurationBeforeSplitProjectReferencesByFileExistence_KLUDGE"
BeforeTargets="_SplitProjectReferencesByFileExistence"
DependsOnTargets="AssignProjectConfiguration" />
</Project>
This could be caused by a bug in MsBuild: https://github.com/Microsoft/msbuild/issues/1054.
A fix is proposed in the comments: https://github.com/Microsoft/msbuild/issues/1054#issuecomment-406438561
When MsBuild determines which items to copy from referenced projects, it should do this recursively but does not properly do this.
As a workaround the following can be added to each csproj.
<Target
Name="ForceAssignProjectConfigurationBeforeSplitProjectReferencesByFileExistence_KLUDGE"
BeforeTargets="_SplitProjectReferencesByFileExistence"
DependsOnTargets="AssignProjectConfiguration"
/>
I just spent a few days trying to figure this out with a similar pattern. In our case it was nuget files that were being removed from the output folder.
NugetPackage (that drops files in x86/x64 subfolders in output folder)
LibraryA.dll
Dependency-> NugetPackage
LibraryB.dll
Dependency-> LibraryA.dll
In our case, we have a number of solution files that are built as part of an msbuild script in a certain order.
The problem was that LibraryB.csproj was included in two solution files.
Solution1 builds and output files are all present.
Solution2 builds and sees that LibraryB.dll is present and up to date, so for some reason triggers the IncrementalClean that removes the NugetPackage files from the output folder.
Once I removed the LibraryB.csproj from solution 2, the problem is solved and the files are present in the output folder.
I'd like to copy a file and include the file in the web project and would like to do this as a part of the Pre/Post build events.
My understanding is that these events support DOS commands and I can use xcopy for copying a file, but I am not sure how I would update the csproj file to include the file in the project.
Do you need the file to be in the output directory or actually be part of the .csproj file ?
If you really want to update the csproj file then try customising the AfterBuild target in the csproj file of the startup project in your solution. All csproj files are msbuild files and you can use the full power or msbuild including callling any task. Right click on the project in the solution explorer, select unload project and then edit project. Then customise the AfterBuild target to change the particular csproj file you want. Use built in tasks or the excellent extension pack for changing the file. Finally reload the project.
I have a Visual Studio C++ project that relies on an external DLL file. How can I make Visual Studio copy this DLL file automatically into the output directory (debug/release) when I build the project?
Use a post-build action in your project, and add the commands to copy the offending DLL. The post-build action are written as a batch script.
The output directory can be referenced as $(OutDir). The project directory is available as $(ProjDir). Try to use relative pathes where applicable, so that you can copy or move your project folder without breaking the post-build action.
$(OutDir) turned out to be a relative path in VS2013, so I had to combine it with $(ProjectDir) to achieve the desired effect:
xcopy /y /d "$(ProjectDir)External\*.dll" "$(ProjectDir)$(OutDir)"
BTW, you can easily debug the scripts by adding 'echo ' at the beginning and observe the expanded text in the build output window.
The details in the comments section above did not work for me (VS 2013) when trying to copy the output dll from one C++ project to the release and debug folder of another C# project within the same solution.
I had to add the following post build-action (right click on the project that has a .dll output) then properties -> configuration properties -> build events -> post-build event -> command line
now I added these two lines to copy the output dll into the two folders:
xcopy /y $(TargetPath) $(SolutionDir)aeiscontroller\bin\Release
xcopy /y $(TargetPath) $(SolutionDir)aeiscontroller\bin\Debug
To do it with the GUI, first add the file(s) to the project: right-click the project, select "Add...", then "Existing Item", then browse to the file or files you want to add and click "Add". Next, tell Visual Studio to copy the file when you build: right-click the file you want to copy, select "Properties". You'll see a list of properties, including "Item Type". Change the "Item Type" to "Copy File". Hit OK and you're done.
Here's the file properties dialog:
Looking in the *.vcxproj file, the steps above add something like this:
<ItemGroup>
<CopyFileToFolders Include="libs\a.dll" />
<CopyFileToFolders Include="libs\a.dll" />
</ItemGroup>
I couldn't find any official documentation for <CopyFileToFolders>, but clearly it's supported or the GUI wouldn't use it. But, if you're doing it by hand and an undocumented item type makes you uncomfortable you can always use the well known but slightly more verbose <Content> type:
<ItemGroup>
<Content Include="libs\a.dll" >
<CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</Content>
<Content Include="libs\b.dll" >
<CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</Content>
</ItemGroup>
Add builtin COPY in project.csproj file:
<Project>
...
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<Copy SourceFiles="$(ProjectDir)..\..\Lib\*.dll" DestinationFolder="$(OutDir)Debug\bin" SkipUnchangedFiles="false" />
<Copy SourceFiles="$(ProjectDir)..\..\Lib\*.dll" DestinationFolder="$(OutDir)Release\bin" SkipUnchangedFiles="false" />
</Target>
</Project>
(This answer only applies to C# not C++, sorry I misread the original question)
I've got through DLL hell like this before. My final solution was to store the unmanaged DLLs in the managed DLL as binary resources, and extract them to a temporary folder when the program launches and delete them when it gets disposed.
This should be part of the .NET or pinvoke infrastructure, since it is so useful.... It makes your managed DLL easy to manage, both using Xcopy or as a Project reference in a bigger Visual Studio solution. Once you do this, you don't have to worry about post-build events.
UPDATE:
I posted code here in another answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/11038376/364818
xcopy /y /d "$(ProjectDir)External\*.dll" "$(TargetDir)"
You can also refer to a relative path, the next example will find the DLL in a folder located one level above the project folder. If you have multiple projects that use the DLL in a single solution, this places the source of the DLL in a common area reachable when you set any of them as the Startup Project.
xcopy /y /d "$(ProjectDir)..\External\*.dll" "$(TargetDir)"
The /y option copies without confirmation.
The /d option checks to see if a file exists in the target and if it does only copies if the source has a newer timestamp than the target.
I found that in at least newer versions of Visual Studio, such as VS2109, $(ProjDir) is undefined and had to use $(ProjectDir) instead.
Leaving out a target folder in xcopy should default to the output directory. That is important to understand reason $(OutDir) alone is not helpful.
$(OutDir), at least in recent versions of Visual Studio, is defined as a relative path to the output folder, such as bin/x86/Debug. Using it alone as the target will create a new set of folders starting from the project output folder. Ex: … bin/x86/Debug/bin/x86/Debug.
Combining it with the project folder should get you to the proper place. Ex: $(ProjectDir)$(OutDir).
However $(TargetDir) will provide the output directory in one step.
Microsoft's list of MSBuild macros for current and previous versions of Visual Studio
I had a similar question. In my project, there were couple of external DLLs. So I created a new folder in the project called "lib" and copied all the external dlls to this folder.
Add a reference to these DLLs.
Go to Project References>dll properties and change the following properties
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