I am working on a ClickOnce application. I am trying to publish it from command line using this:
msbuild Project.csproj /t:Publish /p:configuration=release;
The problem is I want to set some other properties along with configuration, like 'PublishUrl' etc.
I've tried this:
msbuild Project.csproj /t:Publish /p:configuration=release;publishurl="\\sdmm\publish\"
It builds successfully but the output of that project will be copied to the debug folder of application in app.publish folder.
How should I handle this thing? Thanks.
You could set any property you want from the command line but before doing so, you need to open your .csproj file in some texteditor(notepad etc). Find the property that you want to edit. In your case it is publish url. Remove this property from csproj file.
Then you could do this
msbuild /target:clean,publish /p:publishurl=c:\publish_location\
you must clean the project before you publish it.
Try to change your target to
msbuild /target:clean,rebuild,publish
because property you are overriding (PublishUrl) was not embedded into application file if only "Publish" target is used.
Related
I've just started trying to configure a CI/CD process using Visual Studio Team Services, with a view to having a gated check-in process which then automatically packs and pushes the output to a private NuGet Feed. I'm successfully getting through the "Get Sources" task which exists natively in the build definition, however my package task is failing at this stage:
d:\a\_tool\NuGet\4.0.0\x64\nuget.exe pack
d:\a\1\s\Core\Core\Core.csproj -NonInteractive -
OutputDirectory d:\a\1\a -Properties Configuration=$Release;OutDir=$(OutDir)
-Symbols -version 1.0.0-CI-20170811-095629 -Verbosity Detailed
NuGet Version: 4.0.0.2283
Attempting to build package from 'Core.csproj'.
MSBuild auto-detection: using msbuild version '14.0' from 'C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin\amd64'. Use option -MSBuildVersion to force nuget to use a specific version of MSBuild.
NuGet.CommandLine.CommandLineException: Unable to find 'd:\a\1\s\Core\Core\$(OutDir)\Core.dll'. Make sure the project has been built.
Essentially, the 2nd line of the log demonstrates that my project file is in d:\a\1\s, however the output is directed to d\a\1\a - not the same place. The instruction to NuGet to package my file then looks in the correct location (d:\a\1\s), but the file isn't here.
I understand that I can specify a Package Folder within the build definition, however I've not changed this from the default ($(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)) - I expect this to work natively, but for reasons I can't explain, it's not.
Is there a token or wildcard I can provide in an additional build property that will rectify this? I've taken the guidance of the first posted answer in here and changed $(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory) to $(Build.Repository.LocalPath), which gets me much closer to the goal as the error now reads -OutputDirectory d:\a\1\s\... - I've tried manually putting a variety of sensible paths no the end of this, but the error persists.
Refer to this article. It has the build variables for the TFS/VSTS environment.
$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory) itself refers to the \1\a folder. You might want to try the $(Build.Repository.LocalPath) variable.
Not a 100% if it would work, but might as well try.
The issue is related to OutDir=$(OutDir) instead of OutputDirectory.
The OutputDirectory specifies the folder in which the created package is stored and the OutDir specifies the build output, but the project need to be built before NuGet pack task, so you need to add Visual Studio Build task or related to build project.
You can leave Additional build properties box blank to use default output per to configuration, because you just need to know the package stored path to push package to remote feed.
If you want to change build output, you can specify /p:OutDir msbuild argument to change build output location. For example:
Visual Studio Build task (MSBuild Arguments: /p:OutDir=$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory))
NuGet pack task (Additional build properties: OutDir=$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory))
BTW, to change package stored location, you need to specify OutputDirectory.
I currently have multiple projects being build using msbuild. I have a small customisation to the build that is handled by a .targets file. One solution is to add the snippet
<Import Project="MyTargets.targets"/>
to each project file. However, ideally I would like to not touch the project files, and be able to pass this information as a parameter to msbuild. That way I could easily control whether I run this customisation from the command line, and I don't have to touch the existing project files.
Is this possible?
You can do that easily with MSBuild 4.0 (check your version by top-level attribute ToolsVersion="4.0"):
There are multiple properties you can use to import your targets before and after Common.targets and or CSharp.targets loaded.
Simplest way is to use 2 sets of self explaining properties.
First set is:
$(CustomBeforeMicrosoftCommonTargets)
$(CustomAfterMicrosoftCommonTargets)
and second one:
$(CustomBeforeMicrosoftCSharpTargets)
$(CustomAfterMicrosoftCSharpTargets)
Property names are pretty self-explained.
Just pass full file name to any of this properties via msbuild.exe
e.g.
msbuild.exe /p:CustomBeforeMicrosoftCSharpTargets=c:\mytargets\custom.targets
You can use other "ImportByWildcard(Before|After)...." properties if you need to import multiple files. But in that case you need to pass more parameters to command-line.
Starting from MSBuild 15.0, the following two files are auto-imported into your build in case they are found on the project path or in any parent folder on the path to the root directory:
Directory.Build.props
Directory.Build.targets
Remark: once the props or targets file is found, MSBuild will stop looking for a parent one.
Also see: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/msbuild/customize-your-build
Lets say you have a project file called "Project.msbuild". You would add this conditional import:
<Import Project="$(TargetToImport)" Condition="'$(TargetToImport)' != ''" />
Then pass the name of the target file you want to import as an msbuild property:
msbuild.exe Project.msbuild /p:TargetToImport="TargetFile.Target"
Make sure you use an absolute path to the target file and it works.
Source: Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi - MSBuild how to execute a target after CoreCompile part 2.
msbuild.exe /p:CustomBeforeMicrosoftCSharpTargets="c:\mytargets\custom.targets" /preprocess:out.xml
Use /preprocess[:filepath] to see the result of the imports.
You don't have to modify any csproj or vbproj files.
Of course, it only works where you can set MSBuild Properties.
How can I run custom script which will upload ClickOnce deployment files to a web-server (in my case Windows Azure Blog Storage) right after publishing? Is it possible to modify MSBuild file in some way so it would run custom script right after ClickOnce published files into a local folder?
Yes, you can hook to build process using various technics:
pre and post build actions ( from visual studio project properties menu). It's actually exec task hooked into your project file
you can override your DependsOn property for concrete target and append execution of your own target (pre-Msbuild 4.0 way)
you can declare your target and hook with AfterTarget\BeforeTarget attributes (Msbuild4.0 way).
As for uploading something to blob - you can use Exec task in your own target to upload or use whatever tool\script you usually use to uploading files to website\Blob storage.
NB: You could clarify your question with following points (if you need more concrete answer) :
what kind of build process you are using - build from VS, CI server with custom msbuild script, CI server that building your sln file etc
what kind of script\tool you want to execute to upload build result.
do you know the name of last executed msbuild target, after which you want to fire your tool.
I am deploying my web application from command line using this
msbuild WebApplication1.csproj /t:Package /p:configuration=release
It works fine, but the application deployed with the same name that is using in project settings page.
I want to set the name of deployed application using same command line.
Is there any parameter in msbuild to do so or any other approach.
Thanks
You should try this
msbuild WebApplication1.csproj /t:Package /p:configuration=release;DeployIISAppPath="what_ever_name_you_want"
You could get more about these keywords in your project file(.csproj), open it in notepad and search for the default name that is setted by VS. and use that parameter in your command line.
Hope this helps.
MS Build Command line parameters : it doesn't look like you can do it from the command line.
But you can do it in your config file - article using a property group
<PropertyGroup>
<appname>NewApplicationName</appname>
</PropertyGroup>
I can't tell exactly what setting it is in the property pages that you are talking about however the syntax will be something like this:
msbuild WebApplication1.csproj /t:Package /p:configuration=release /p:appname=Test
I have a collection of unit test that I need to all run from one command line call. One of the assemblies uses a different config file than the rest of the assemblies. Is there a way to specify more than one app config file in one nunit project file?
Not in a project file, but you can specify a config file per assembly (e.g. TestAssembly1.dll.config)
I would say when you script running your tests, you rename the right app.config to replace the other one so that when your tests start the right app.config is loaded. Let me know if you need an example of how to do that.