CODEWITHSUNDEEP
visual-c++visual-studio-2012msbuild
Ben L
Ben L

Reputation: 1321

MSBuild Messages for c++

Problem: Editings .props files with msbuild is failing. I'd like to see what the intermediate results of operations are doing with some output message. " is not supported" is the what the IDE is telling me.

Example: I want to get the last four characters of the configuration name to use a part of a string.

    <ImportGroup Label="PropertySheets">
        <Import project=".\prop_$(Configuration.Substring($([MSBuild]::Subtract($(Configuration.Length),4)) )).props" />    
  </ImportGroup>

How can I see the results of the parts, the length, the subtract, the substring? I want to be able to print out these values during the processing.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 328

Answers (1)

Kyle C
Kyle C

Reputation: 1637

You can use the Message Task

example: At the top of the project set InitialTargets to the name of your Target

<Project DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" InitialTargets="DisplayText">

<Target Name="DisplayText">
   <Message Importance="high" Text="Configuration = $(Configuration)" />
   <Message Importance="high" Text="Configuration Length = $(Configuration.Length)" />
   <Message Importance="high" Text="Configuration Substring = $(Configuration.Substring($([MSBuild]::Subtract($(Configuration.Length),4))))" />
</Target>

That should print out everything you asked about during the build process.

1>------ Build started: Project: TemplateTest, Configuration: Debug Win32 ------
1>  Configuration = Debug
1>  Configuration Length = 5
1>  Configuration Substring = ebug

Upvotes: 2

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