Msbuild stuff

useful additions to build files

The project files for MsBuild can be extended to do useful things during the build process.

I collected a few ideas to make my projects more useful.

Getting the build time into code #

One can add a build target that gets executed before compiling. This one adds a new file which gets recreated each time. Then, a BuildVersion.Version is available in CSharp.

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<Target Name="BuildVersion" BeforeTargets="BeforeCompile">
    <Message Text="Configuration is $(Configuration)" />
    <PropertyGroup>
      <BuildCs>
        namespace $(RootNamespace){
        public class BuildVersion {
        public static string Version="$([System.DateTime]::Now.ToString(yyyy.MM.dd.HHmm))" %3B
        } }
      </BuildCs>
    </PropertyGroup>
    <WriteLinesToFile File="$(ProjectDir)BuildVersion.cs" Overwrite="true" Lines="$(BuildCs)" />
</Target>

Copying after creating a publish version #

One can add a build target after the publishing, f.e. to copy the binary files to a specific location.

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  <Target Name="CopyToBin" AfterTargets="Publish">
    <Message Text="Inside AfterPublish" Importance="high" />
    <Exec Command="C:\bin\bmc.exe bin\publish -t C:\bin" ConsoleToMsBuild="true" />
  </Target>