Building C# solutions from command line with Visual Studio 2010

Question

I want to automate the build process for my C# solutions. How can I build C# solutions from the command line so that I don't have to deal with dependencies manually?

Answer 1

Visual Studio project and solution files are also MSBuild build files.

You can simply run MSBuild against the solution/project file and it will build:

<path to>msbuild.exe <path to>solution/project file

Answer 2

if you open a visual studio command prompt from your start menu - then you can call MSBuild and give that either the .sln file or a specific .csproj file in order to build what you need

alternatively you can create a custom MSBuild file that takes care of the tasks.

one tip: make sure the version of MSBuild that you use is applicable to the target framework or tools version of the project

i.e. if you try and build a solution that was created in vs2010 with msbuild 3.5 then it will not recognise the 4.0 toolset of the project

Answer 3

you can use the c# (csc.exe) compiler directly:

Command-line building with csc.exe

Answer 4

Personally I'm a huge fan of Rake (yeah - I heard you when you said your c# solution)

Check it out: http://www.lostechies.com/blogs/derickbailey/archive/2009/09/23/albacore-a-suite-of-rake-build-tasks-for-net-solutions.aspx

Have fun - it made life a lot better for me!

Answer 5

For solutions you can use:

devenv /build Release Solution.sln

or

devenv /build Debug Solution.sln

Answer 6

msbuild YourSolution.sln