I'm trying to copy several files in the $(TargetDir) to another folder (e.g. C:\BinCache), but for whatever reason I cannot get MSBuild to stop complaining.
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<Copy SourceFiles="$(TargetDir)\*.*"
DestinationFolder="C:\BinCache" />
</Target>
What am I doing wrong here?
EDIT: The solution is to use a CreateItem task. Presumably, Visual Studio 2008 removes this restriction. Thanks Scott!
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<CreateItem Include="$(TargetDir)\*.*">
<Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="SourceFiles" />
</CreateItem>
<Copy SourceFiles="#(SourceFiles)" DestinationFolder="C:\BinCache" />
</Target>
SourceFiles needs to be an Item list
you'll need something like
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<ItemGroup>
<SourceFiles Include="$(TargetDir)\*.*" />
</ItemGroup>
<Copy SourceFiles="#(SourceFiles)" DestinationFolder="C:\BinCache" />
</Target>
Just noticed you're on 2005, in that case you'll need to use the CreateItem task
Just use a regular pre- or post-build event. VS supports this out of the box.
xcopy "#(TargetDir)*.dll" "\yourdir" /i /f /s /v /y
Related
I am looking for a way to run my defined Target only once per build process and not for every project that gets build.
I have defined the following in Directory.Build.props
<Target Name="MyTarget" AfterTargets="AfterBuild" >
<Message Text="Hello World!!!" Importance="High" />
</Target>
Should only run once no matter how many projects the msbuild process is building, currently it happens for each project.
It shouldn't matter if I hit (Re-)Build Soltution or (Re-)Build [ProjectName] or hit F5 in Visual Studio, as long any build happens I want to exectue MyTarget only once.
Just answer this situation:
If my guess is right, pure msbuild function is not enough and you have to use a external file to help it work.
create a file called test.txt on the solution folder and write 0 in the txt file.
Then, modify your Directory.Build.props like this:
<Project>
<PropertyGroup>
<Record></Record>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<File Include="..\test.txt"></File>
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="GetConditionValue" BeforeTargets="PrepareForBuild">
<ReadLinesFromFile File="#(File)">
<Output TaskParameter="Lines" PropertyName="Record"/>
</ReadLinesFromFile>
</Target>
<Target Name="MyTarget" AfterTargets="Build" Condition="'$(Record)'=='0'">
<WriteLinesToFile File="#(File)" Lines="2" Overwrite="true"></WriteLinesToFile>
<Message Text="Hello World!!!" Importance="High" />
</Target>
</Project>
When you start a new build process, you should clear the test.txt file to 0 to make a new start.
Once I added Fody.Costura to my project, my post build event that was copying the resulting assembly into a different location started failing with access denied message. That makes sense since Costura uses MSBuild to embed the assemblies. Is there a way to force my post builds to execute after Costura is finished? Example of a post build command:
copy /Y "$(TargetPath)" "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Autodesk\Revit\Addins\2019\HOK-Addin.bundle\Contents"
Basically the solution to my own question is the following.
<Target Name="CopyFiles" AfterTargets="AfterBuild;NonWinFodyTarget">
<Message Text="Signing file..." Importance="high" />
<Exec Command=""C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.17134.0\x64\signtool.exe" sign /c "Code Signing - DTM" /v "$(TargetPath)"" />
<Message Text="Copy files..." Importance="high" />
<Message Text="$(TargetPath) > $(ALLUSERSPROFILE)\Autodesk\Revit\Addins\$(Configuration)\HOK-Addin.bundle\Contents" Importance="high" />
<Message Text="$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).addin > $(ALLUSERSPROFILE)\Autodesk\Revit\Addins\$(Configuration)" Importance="high" />
<Copy SourceFiles="$(TargetPath)" DestinationFolder="$(ALLUSERSPROFILE)\Autodesk\Revit\Addins\$(Configuration)\HOK-Addin.bundle\Contents" ContinueOnError="true" />
<Copy SourceFiles="$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).addin" DestinationFolder="$(ALLUSERSPROFILE)\Autodesk\Revit\Addins\$(Configuration)" ContinueOnError="true" />
</Target>
What I did, was to replace the standatd Post Build Command that runs Command Line routines, with a MSBuild Target and a Task.Giving it flags to run after Build is finished and Fody is done merging assemblies resolves my issue.
What also helps is the fact that Tasks have flags like ContinueOnError="true" that allow the task to keep trying until the file is available (if that was the issue) as opposed to command line utilities that would just fail.
Cheers!
I wrote a C# template for creating of the .Net extensions for AutoCAD. Before, for each AutoCAD version it is was necessary to point the individual referenses set, the output directory, the target .Net Framework Platform, etc. Exist many versions of AutoCAD: AutoCAD 2009, 2010, ..., 2015. Now my template do it instead of me. My csproj-file has the CAD_Year property:
<PropertyGroup>
<CAD_Year>2013</CAD_Year>
<Min_Year>2009</Min_Year>
<Max_Year>2015</Max_Year>
</PropertyGroup>
When I change CAD_Year value (manually edit this option in the csproj-file) - all settings of my project do change too according target AutoCAD version. It works fine.
But I need to compile my code for all versions of AutoCAD always... It is inconvenient to change the CAD_Year every time for this... :(((
How can I create the cycle of compiling my project for the versions Min_Year, ..., Max_Year when I press the Rebuild Solution menu item?
Thank you, #stijn. I will mark your answer as a solution. Here I create an "answer" for the code highlighting. My current code works:
<!-- Redefine the CoreClean target, otherwise MSBuild will remove all results
of building except for the last. -->
<Target Name="CoreClean">
<ItemGroup>
<AllFiles Include="$(OutputPath)\*.*" />
</ItemGroup>
<Copy SourceFiles="#(AllFiles)" DestinationFolder="$(OutputPath)\temp" />
</Target>
<Target Name="BatchRebuild">
<ItemGroup>
<CADYearsItem Include="$(BuildFor)" />
</ItemGroup>
<Msbuild Projects="$(MsBuildThisFile)" Targets="Rebuild" Properties="CAD_Year_Platform=%(CADYearsItem.Identity)" />
<ItemGroup>
<AllFilesBack Include="$(OutputPath)\temp\*.*" />
</ItemGroup>
<Move SourceFiles="#(AllFilesBack)" DestinationFolder="$(OutputPath)" />
<!-- Doesn't work for Debug. The $(OutputPath)\temp\ will not removed.
But it work for Release.-->
<RemoveDir Directories="$(OutputPath)\temp\" />
</Target>
I see, the RemoveDir task doesn't work for the Debug for me, but it is not a big problem. Now my template is complete, and I will do refactoring of this. Thank you very much!
If you add this to your project file:
<ItemGroup>
<CADYears Include="2013;2014;2015"/>
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="BatchRebuild">
<Msbuild Projects="$(MsBuildThisFile)" Targets="Rebuild" Properties="CAD_Year=%(CADYears.Identity)"/>
</Target>
and call
msbuild <path_to_projectfile> /t:BatchRebuild
on the commandline, it will build path_to_projectfile 3 times each with a different CAD_Year property.
To get this invoked by VS is trickier since you need to override the Rebuild target, but this for instance works for VS2013 (Actualrebuild target was copied from the Rebuild target in C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\12.0\Bin\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets):
<ItemGroup>
<CADYears Include="2013;2014;2015"/>
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="ActualRebuild"
Condition=" '$(_InvalidConfigurationWarning)' != 'true' "
DependsOnTargets="$(RebuildDependsOn)"
Returns="$(TargetPath)"/>
<Target Name="BatchRebuild">
<Msbuild Projects="$(MsBuildThisFile)" Targets="ActualRebuild" Properties="CAD_Year=%(CADYears.Identity)"/>
</Target>
<Target Name="Rebuild">
<Msbuild Projects="$(MsBuildThisFile)" Targets="BatchRebuild"/>
</Target>
Edit
Since the template system in VS tries to copies ItemGroups it finds in the project root (which seems like a bug to me, or at the least a very annoying feature) you can work around that by using a property and converting it into an item when needed:
<PropertyGroup>
<CADYears>2013;2014;2015<CADYears/>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="BatchRebuild">
<ItemGroup>
<CADYearsItem Include="$(CADYears)"/>
</ItemGroup>
<Msbuild Projects="$(MsBuildThisFile)" Targets="Rebuild" Properties="CAD_Year=%(CADYearsItem .Identity)"/>
</Target>
Note: in the project you posted in the link you are invoking the Rebuild target in the Afterbuild target. I didn't try it, but that will almost certainly lead to infinite recursion. So you should stick to a solution like posted above with a seperate target.
In Visual Studio am creating a post-build event for Deploying using
md "$(SolutionDir)Deploy\bin"
which created the bin folder inside Deploy folder, inside my Solution.
How do I point this to the folder in some remote machine (where I have the web server)?
$(SolutionDir) to some other folder on a remote machine?
It may look simple to you. :) This is the first time am trying this stuff.
Thanks
The easiest way is to replace $(SolutionDir) with \\server\share
Just as an alternative, I like to keep my .sln and .csproj files "clean".
Then use a second (mini) .msbuild ( which is just a .xml file) to build the .sln, and then do these copy type events as a second action.
Here is a basic example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" DefaultTargets="AllTargetsWrapper">
<PropertyGroup>
<WorkingCheckout>.</WorkingCheckout>
<WorkingOutputs>m:\working\outputs</WorkingOutputs>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="AllTargetsWrapper">
<CallTarget Targets="Clean" />
<CallTarget Targets="Build" />
<CallTarget Targets="CopyItUp" />
</Target>
<Target Name="Clean">
<RemoveDir Directories="$(WorkingOutputs)" />
<MakeDir Directories="$(WorkingOutputs)" />
<Message Text="Cleaning done" />
</Target>
<Target Name="Build">
<MSBuild Projects="$(WorkingCheckout)\MySolution.sln" Targets="Build" Properties="Configuration=$(Configuration)">
<Output TaskParameter="TargetOutputs" ItemName="TargetOutputsItemName"/>
</MSBuild>
<Message Text="Build completed" />
</Target>
<!-- -->
<Target Name="CopyItUp" >
<ItemGroup>
<MyExcludeFiles Include="$(WorkingCheckout)\**\SuperSecretStuff.txt" />
<MyExcludeFiles Include="$(WorkingCheckout)\**\SuperSecretStuff.doc" />
</ItemGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<MyIncludeFiles Include="$(WorkingCheckout)\MyCsProject\bin\$(Configuration)\**\*.*" Exclude="#(MyExcludeFiles)"/>
</ItemGroup>
<Copy
SourceFiles="#(MyIncludeFiles)"
DestinationFiles="#(MyIncludeFiles->'$(WorkingOutputs)\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)')"
/>
</Target>
</Project>
I have VS2010 project with several third-party references. Is there any way to automatically output these references to $(OutputPath)\Libraries instead of just $(OutputPath)?
Right now I have a custom AfterBuild target which looks like this,
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<ItemGroup>
<LibFiles Include="$(SolutionDir)\lib\dotnetzip-1.9\Release\Ionic.Zip.dll" />
<LibFiles Include="$(SolutionDir)\lib\ninject-2.2.0.0\Ninject.dll" />
<LibFiles Include="$(SolutionDir)\lib\nlog-2.0.0.2000\NLog.dll" />
<LibFiles Include="$(SolutionDir)\lib\nlog-2.0.0.2000\NLog.Extended.dll" />
</ItemGroup>
<Copy SourceFiles="#(LibFiles)" DestinationFolder="$(OutputPath)\Libraries" />
</Target>
However this gets tiring since I have to manually add references to #(LibFiles) when adding a reference in VS.
Is there an easier way?
Try to do it this way:
<ItemGroup>
<LibFiles Include="$(SolutionDir)\lib\**\*.dll" />
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="AfterBuild" Inputs="#(LibFiles)">
<Copy SourceFiles="#(LibFiles)" DestinationFolder="$(OutputPath)\Libraries" />
</Target>
Pros:
you don't have to modify AfterBuild target everytime you add new
reference into your projects
libraries are copied only once or if datetime of any of files in
#(LibFiles) is changed (after update)
Cons:
you will have more dlls in Libraries folder, I guess. But you can filter them using Exclude="$(SolutionDir)\lib\**\Debug\*.dll" for example