MSBuild Batching 2

A twist on the previous entry. Here’s a very similar, but different scenario. You have a set of files, that you want to push to a set of folders. But you have to “discover” these folders. In this scenario there are really 2 different situations you can be in.

1. Each folder contains a file that you are able to identify by file name

2. Each folder contains no files, but you are able to identify the folder by its name

For 2) you’ll have to rely on a custom task to get locate these folders. This is because if the folder is empty then you are not able to put these in an Item the normal way. I’ve previously written a task FindUnder that you can use for this purpose. You can find this task, and a handful of others at http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=Sedodream. Let’s go over scenario 2 because I think it’s a little more straight forward.

Here is the directory structure that you have to work with:

│ AssemblyInfo.cs

│ DeploySample.proj

│ Other1.cs

│ Other2.cs

├───Deploy

│ ├───five.control

│ ├───four.control

│ ├───one.control

│ ├───six.control

│ ├───six.something

│ ├───three.control

│ ├───three.something

│ └───two.control

In this example the folders that you want to copy into end with .control, and the files you want to copy include AssemblyInfo.cs, Other1.cs and Other2.cs. In this situation we want to find all folders under Deploy that end with control. So our search pattern will be *control under the Deploy folder. Here’s how we find those folders using the FindUnder task, and copy the files into them.

<DeployRoot>DeployDeployRoot>

<SearchPath>*.controlSearchPath>

PropertyGroup>

ItemGroup>

FindUnder>

Target>

Let’s talk about the Copy task above. This shows how we can copy a set of folders to a set of different folders. This is possible through batching which was discussed in more detail in the previous post. As you use batching keep in mind that batching isn’t limited to custom meta-data. But can also be used with Well-known item metadata. That is what we are doing in this example.

Now let’s see how can we handle situation 1). To review, this is the situation that we have files in a set of directories that we can identify. In this example let’s say that file is named app.config. So we want to find all folders under a given location that have a file named app.config inside of it. So here is your directory structure

│ AssemblyInfo.cs

│ DeploySample.proj

│ Other1.cs

│ Other2.cs

└───Deploy2

├───five.control

│ app.config

├───four.control

│ app.config

├───one.control

│ app.config

├───six.control

│ app.config

├───six.something

├───three.control

│ app.config

├───three.something

└───two.control

app.config

So the result should actually be the same as the previous example. This is how to achieve that.

<DeployRoot2>Deploy2DeployRoot2>

PropertyGroup>

ItemGroup>

<Message Text="Folders to deploy to:%0d%0a@(KeyFiles->'%(RecursiveDir)','%0d%0a')"/>

Target>

So the in this example I’m using the KeyFiles item to determine which folders to copy all the files to. From the Deploy2 target you can see that I’m using batching to copy all the FilesToCopy into each of the locations determined by the KeyFiles item. The directory that contains each KeyFile is determined by the RecursiveDir well-known meta-data value.

You can download the entire sample at: www.sedodream.com/content/binary/BatchingSample.zip

Or you can have a look at the project file at: www.sedodream.com/content/binary/DeploySample.proj.txt

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi

MSBuild Batching 2

Comment Section