If you look around the net you'll find a few different Xml loggers for MSBuild. When I was writing my book I decided to write my own Xml Logger for a few different reasons. The source for the Xml logger that I wrote is available at apress.com. I'm currently in the process of trying to get some shared space for me to place my tasks and loggers that I've written for everyone to have a look at. Once I get that squared away I'll make sure to write an entry about it. In the mean time let's talk about my Xml logger. What is different about my Xml logger versus some others that you may find? When I was looking around for one, I noticed that the ones that I found didn't support building solution files very well. So that was a deficiency that I wasn't willing to sacrifice with. Besides that, I noticed that none of them had an append options as most file based loggers do. So I added that to my Xml logger. I think this is a good option if you are performing a nightly ( or continuous ) build. That way you have one place to go to each time you want to see how your build progressed. However this xml file can get quite large if your build is spanning many projects.
At the bottom of this blog you can download the dll for this logger (Contained in a zip file). The source will be made available soon. There are 4 logger arguments:
   

Name	Description
Append	True/false If true then if a log file exists then it will be append to, otherwise any existing log file will be replaced.
Logfile	Name of the log file to write to
Showsummary	True/false if true then a summary will be contained in the xml file for errors and warnings.
Verbosity	The verbosity level of the logger. Same as msbuild.exe values see MSBuild Command Line Reference

   Here is some sample output:

<MSBuild>

  <Build Started="6/9/2006 1:09:51 AM" Verbosity="Detailed"

Finished="6/9/2006 1:09:56 AM" Succeeded="False">

    <Message>Build started.Message>

    <Project Name="C:\Data\Dreamcatcher_NET\Dreamcatcher\Dreamcatcher.sln"

Message="Project "Dreamcatcher.sln" (Rebuild target(s)):" \

Started="6/9/2006 1:09:51 AM" Finished="6/9/2006 1:09:56 AM">

      <Target Started="6/9/2006 1:09:51 AM" Name="ValidateSolutionConfiguration"

Message="Target "ValidateSolutionConfiguration" in project "Dreamcatcher.sln"" Finished="6/9/2006 1:09:51 AM" Succeeded="True">

        <Task Started="6/9/2006 1:09:51 AM" Name="Message" Finished="6/9/2006 1:09:51 AM" />

      Target>
…

<MSBuild>

 

Here is what the summary section looks like:

    <Warnings>

      <Warning Code="CS0162" Subcategory="">

        <Message>Controls\DreamView.cs(450,6): warning CS0162: Unreachable code detectedMessage>

      Warning>

    Warnings>

    <Errors>

      <Error File="Controls\DreamView.cs" Code="CS1026" Subcategory="">

        <Message>Controls\DreamView.cs(459,44): error CS1026: ) expectedMessage>

        <Location Line="459" ColumnNumber="44" />

      Error>

      <Error File="Controls\DreamView.cs" Code="CS1002" Subcategory="">

        <Message>Controls\DreamView.cs(459,45): error CS1002: ; expectedMessage>

        <Location Line="459" ColumnNumber="45" />

      Error>

      <Error File="Controls\DreamView.cs" Code="CS1525" Subcategory="">

        <Message>Controls\DreamView.cs(459,45): error CS1525: Invalid expression term ')'Message>

        <Location Line="459" ColumnNumber="45" />

      Error>

      <Error File="Controls\DreamView.cs" Code="CS1002" Subcategory="">

        <Message>Controls\DreamView.cs(459,46): error CS1002: ; expectedMessage>

        <Location Line="459" ColumnNumber="46" />

      Error>

    Errors>

The syntax to use this logger at the command prompt is:

msbuild.exe /l:XmlLogger,PATH_TO_ASSEMBLY\Sedodream.MSBuild.Loggers.dll;logfile=build.xml;verbosity=detailed;append=true;showsummary=true

There is no required parameters the defaults are:

• Logfile=build.log.xml
• Verbosity=normal
• Append=false
• Showsummary=false

Sedodream.MSBuild.Loggers.zip (binaries 9.77 KB)

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi