.net – MSBuild builds projects with project references correctly but not from solution

msbuildnet

When i build a A.sln which includes 2 projects B.csproj and C.csproj which has internal project references it throws reference errors in MSBuild. But when i build B.csproj and C.csproj seperately in MSBuild it don't throw errors. And also building A.sln in VS IDE also don't throw errors.I'm using .NET 2.0 framework. Please find below the scripts used to build the sln and projs.

MSBuild "<path>/A.sln" /p:Configuration=Release /p:StartupObject="" /p:WarningLevel=4 /p:Optimize=true /t:rebuild /l:Filelogger,Microsoft.Build.Engine;logfile=F:\A.sln.log /verbosity:normal

MSBuild "<path>/B.csproj" /p:Configuration=Release /p:StartupObject="" /p:WarningLevel=4 /p:Optimize=true /t:rebuild /l:Filelogger,Microsoft.Build.Engine;logfile=F:\B.csproj.log /verbosity:normal 

MSBuild "<path>/C.csproj" /p:Configuration=Release /p:StartupObject="" /p:WarningLevel=4 /p:Optimize=true /t:rebuild /l:Filelogger,Microsoft.Build.Engine;logfile=F:\C.csproj.log /verbosity:normal

Edit:

All the errors thrown are from code for missing refernces(all are project references). I get only three type of errors like given below.

error CS0012: The type 'X' is defined
in an assembly that is not referenced.
You must add a reference to assembly
'Y, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=aad4cbe5d7c27078'.

error CS0234: The type or namespace
name 'X' does not exist in the
namespace 'Y' (are you missing an
assembly reference?)

error CS0246: The type or namespace
name 'X' could not be found (are you
missing a using directive or an
assembly reference?)

I cleared all previously built dlls from build paths before building from both IDE and MSBuild. But IDE just works fine and don't show a reference missing indicator in "Refrences" section for the project.

No reference paths added manually in IDE.

Another Update:

I just noticed that when i open both the projects from the solution, references are correctly pointing in IDE. But when i open the projects seperately in IDE, the missing references i mentioned occuring in MSBuild creeps up. Very wierd.

So to summarize,

Buiilding .proj in MSBuild – Good

Buiilding .proj in IDE – Error

Buiilding .sln in MSBuild – Error

Buiilding .sln in IDE – Good

Looks very wierd for me. Help much much appreciated.

Best Answer

MSBuild and VS both use project references and project dependencies to choose the solution build order. Beyond that, it's undefined - and typically different between the two. Check both of these are correct. Project dependencies are set in the properties of your solution. If that doesn't work, double check the GUIDs in the project references in your projects match the ones in the solution. Sometimes recreating the solution can fix them.

Related Solutions

C# – the best practice for “Copy Local” and with project references

In a previous project I worked with one big solution with project references and bumped into a performance problem as well. The solution was three fold:

Always set the Copy Local property to false and enforce this via a custom msbuild step
Set the output directory for each project to the same directory (preferably relative to $(SolutionDir)

The default cs targets that get shipped with the framework calculate the set of references to be copied to the output directory of the project currently being built. Since this requires calculating a transitive closure under the 'References' relation this can become VERY costly. My workaround for this was to redefine the GetCopyToOutputDirectoryItems target in a common targets file (eg. Common.targets ) that's imported in every project after the import of the Microsoft.CSharp.targets. Resulting in every project file to look like the following:

<Project DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    ... snip ...
  </ItemGroup>
  <Import Project="$(MSBuildBinPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />
  <Import Project="[relative path to Common.targets]" />
  <!-- To modify your build process, add your task inside one of the targets below and uncomment it. 
       Other similar extension points exist, see Microsoft.Common.targets.
  <Target Name="BeforeBuild">
  </Target>
  <Target Name="AfterBuild">
  </Target>
  -->
</Project>

This reduced our build time at a given time from a couple of hours (mostly due to memory constraints), to a couple of minutes.

The redefined GetCopyToOutputDirectoryItems can be created by copying the lines 2,438–2,450 and 2,474–2,524 from C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Microsoft.Common.targets into Common.targets.

For completeness the resulting target definition then becomes:

<!-- This is a modified version of the Microsoft.Common.targets
     version of this target it does not include transitively
     referenced projects. Since this leads to enormous memory
     consumption and is not needed since we use the single
     output directory strategy.
============================================================
                    GetCopyToOutputDirectoryItems

Get all project items that may need to be transferred to the
output directory.
============================================================ -->
<Target
    Name="GetCopyToOutputDirectoryItems"
    Outputs="@(AllItemsFullPathWithTargetPath)"
    DependsOnTargets="AssignTargetPaths;_SplitProjectReferencesByFileExistence">

    <!-- Get items from this project last so that they will be copied last. -->
    <CreateItem
        Include="@(ContentWithTargetPath->'%(FullPath)')"
        Condition="'%(ContentWithTargetPath.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='Always' or '%(ContentWithTargetPath.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='PreserveNewest'"
            >
        <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="AllItemsFullPathWithTargetPath"/>
        <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="_SourceItemsToCopyToOutputDirectoryAlways"
                Condition="'%(ContentWithTargetPath.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='Always'"/>
        <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="_SourceItemsToCopyToOutputDirectory"
                Condition="'%(ContentWithTargetPath.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='PreserveNewest'"/>
    </CreateItem>

    <CreateItem
        Include="@(_EmbeddedResourceWithTargetPath->'%(FullPath)')"
        Condition="'%(_EmbeddedResourceWithTargetPath.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='Always' or '%(_EmbeddedResourceWithTargetPath.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='PreserveNewest'"
            >
        <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="AllItemsFullPathWithTargetPath"/>
        <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="_SourceItemsToCopyToOutputDirectoryAlways"
                Condition="'%(_EmbeddedResourceWithTargetPath.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='Always'"/>
        <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="_SourceItemsToCopyToOutputDirectory"
                Condition="'%(_EmbeddedResourceWithTargetPath.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='PreserveNewest'"/>
    </CreateItem>

    <CreateItem
        Include="@(Compile->'%(FullPath)')"
        Condition="'%(Compile.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='Always' or '%(Compile.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='PreserveNewest'">
        <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="_CompileItemsToCopy"/>
    </CreateItem>
    <AssignTargetPath Files="@(_CompileItemsToCopy)" RootFolder="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)">
        <Output TaskParameter="AssignedFiles" ItemName="_CompileItemsToCopyWithTargetPath" />
    </AssignTargetPath>
    <CreateItem Include="@(_CompileItemsToCopyWithTargetPath)">
        <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="AllItemsFullPathWithTargetPath"/>
        <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="_SourceItemsToCopyToOutputDirectoryAlways"
                Condition="'%(_CompileItemsToCopyWithTargetPath.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='Always'"/>
        <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="_SourceItemsToCopyToOutputDirectory"
                Condition="'%(_CompileItemsToCopyWithTargetPath.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='PreserveNewest'"/>
    </CreateItem>

    <CreateItem
        Include="@(_NoneWithTargetPath->'%(FullPath)')"
        Condition="'%(_NoneWithTargetPath.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='Always' or '%(_NoneWithTargetPath.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='PreserveNewest'"
            >
        <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="AllItemsFullPathWithTargetPath"/>
        <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="_SourceItemsToCopyToOutputDirectoryAlways"
                Condition="'%(_NoneWithTargetPath.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='Always'"/>
        <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="_SourceItemsToCopyToOutputDirectory"
                Condition="'%(_NoneWithTargetPath.CopyToOutputDirectory)'=='PreserveNewest'"/>
    </CreateItem>
</Target>

With this workaround in place I found it workable to have as much as > 120 projects in one solution, this has the main benefit that the build order of the projects can still be determined by VS instead of doing that by hand by splitting up your solution.

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.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C# – the best practice for “Copy Local” and with project references

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

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