CODEWITHSUNDEEP
msbuild
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Reputation: 2521

MSBuild shared .targets file

I have several .csproj files that I will be importing a common .targets file into, to extend the build process. The projects are in different directories. The .targets file is in the solution directory. How do I refer to the location of the .targets file to import it? There's a solution directory property, but this doesn't work if the developer just builds a project. What do I do? I am using .NET 4.5 and Visual Studio 2015.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 597

Answers (1)

stijn
stijn

Reputation: 35921

As you figured a project doesn't know about a solution it's contained in, and arguably it shouldn't. So there's not much you can do to programmatically figure out where, from the project's point of view, a totally unrelated file is situated. Apart from scanning the entire filesystem for it. There are some alternatives:

  • rely on a proper directory structure. You do this already anyway, since you use a solution which also needs to find projects in a fixed location. So suppose you have a main project dir with projectA/a.vcxproj, projectB/b.vcxproj and solutionDir/ab.sln and solutionDir/my.targets then in a and b just <Import Project="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)..\solutionDir\my.targets"/>
  • require a property (or environment variable) which is set to the location of the targets file and then use <Import Project="$(SomeDir)\my.targets"/>
  • put your targets file in a 'known' msbuild location like the Importbefore/ImportAfter directories, mentioned here for instance.

I've used all of these at one point and in the end the first is in my opinion the better one: you just have to stick with a directory convention - you need that anyway for projects spanning mulriple directories or with common shared stuff - and that's it. For example we have a ton of common msbuild files and they're in a single repository. Starting a new project always comes down to creating a directory, cloning the common files dir and adding a new project dir. That can it turn easily be automated, also works well on typical CI servers. The second option is also doable, but it relies on a properly setup environment which is less 'self-contained' and gets really messy if developpers start entering the variable in the machines' global environment variable settings, and in the local ones, and so on. Similar problems with the third one but worse since now there's only one correct location.

Upvotes: 2

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