Custom MSBuild task with dependencies

msbuild

I have written an MSBuild task that makes use of third-party assemblies.

When I use the task in my project, MSBuild complains that it can't load the third-party assemblies (not surprisingly).

Where should I place the third-party assemblies so that they are available to MSBuild. I tried adding project references to them without success.

Best Answer

I'm not sure if I expressed my problem very well, but now I've found the solution.

In my .proj file, I reference my custom task with the following syntax...

<UsingTask AssemblyFile="..\lib\MyCompany.MSBuild\MyCompany.MSBuild.dll" TaskName="CreateDatabase" />

My CreateDatabase task relies on various 3rd-party assemblies. However, some of these are only referenced via reflection, so weren't included by default in the folder "..\lib\MyCompany.MSBuild".

I had been trying to get the task to work by placing the required assemblies in the same directory as the .proj file invoking the task.

However, what I should have been doing was putting the assemblies in the referenced task directory "..\lib\MyCompany.MSBuild\".

Simple!

Related Solutions

Visual-studio – MSBuild doesn’t copy references (DLL files) if using project dependencies in solution

I just deal with it like this. Go to the properties of your reference and do this:

Set "Copy local = false"
Save
Set "Copy local = true"
Save

and that's it.

Visual Studio 2010 doesn't initially put: <private>True</private> in the reference tag and setting "copy local" to false causes it to create the tag. Afterwards it will set it to true and false accordingly.

MSBuild overwriting dependencies

Firstly I would always have the build server delete the old working copy and check out a fresh copy to avoid any problems with stale artifacts from the previous build.

Next I would have nant or msbuild build the solutions as before with the artifacts from each build going to their local working output folders.

After that I'd move the artifacts from their working paths to their output paths, this shouldn't require digging through the project files since you can just tell msbuild/nant to copy working\project1\bin\release\**\*.* to artifacts\project1\.

The script that does this should ideally be stored along with the source with the main file, e.g. build.nant or build.proj in top level of the trunk.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Visual-studio – MSBuild doesn’t copy references (DLL files) if using project dependencies in solution

MSBuild overwriting dependencies

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