MSBuild / Microsoft.Build... nyaaargh!

Wenff

Someone out there must be able to help me... I'm trying to find/design a way of automating my project's builds, publishing, versioning in VSS etc and I'd like to create an app/script that will obey my command and do in one easy button click, what would otherwise take copious amounts of time & attention. The general idea is: Build a project/solution based on the .*proj files, publish the project with different config settings & install location depending on whether the app is going to QA, Pre-Prod or Production. I would also like to be able to have Source Safe's labelling done automatically. So far, I have found that Microsoft's MSBuild Reference on MSDN is virtually useless ( :wtf: ???), but I have been able to compile a project via the command line using it. I found that Microsoft.Build.BuildEngine looked perfect for what I'm trying to acheive, however, using the following code, I can't get it to build the project:

Engine engine = new Engine();
Project project = new Project(engine);
project.Load(strProjFile);
project.Build();

The Build method on the Project keeps returning False - no error, nothing. (Before you ask, yes, the path to the project file is correct - the same file builds fine through VS2008 as well as MSBuild) (Oh, and again, Great Job Microsoft on the crummy documentation) If anyone has an idea of where I am going wrong, please, please, please! Let me know :-)

SeMartens

Do you try to build a Continous Integration system? I would suggest using CruiseControl.NET. We accomplished that on a check-in to VSS the projects are compiled, unit-tests will run, documentation and release notes generated and at least a msi-file will be created. Regards Sebastian

It's not a bug, it's a feature! Check out my CodeProject article Permission-by-aspect. Me in Softwareland.

Wenff

Hah! Victory :-D It appears that if you add logging, you find out what the problem is...

        // Instantiate a new Engine object
        Engine engine = new Engine();

        // Instantiate a new FileLogger to generate build log
        FileLogger logger = new FileLogger();

        // Set the logfile parameter to indicate the log destination
        logger.Parameters = @"logfile=" + strlogFile;

        // Register the logger with the engine

        engine.RegisterLogger(logger);

        // Build a project file
        bool success = engine.BuildProjectFile(strProjectFile);

        //Unregister all loggers to close the log file
        engine.UnregisterAllLoggers();

        if (success)
            MessageBox.Show("Build succeeded.");
        else
            MessageBox.Show(@"Build failed. View " + strLogFile + " for details");

Using the above code, I was able to view the log of the issue: C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.WinFX.targets(64,7): error MSB4127: The "GetWinFXPath" task could not be instantiated from the assembly "PresentationBuildTasks, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35". This issue in turn needs the following config file settings to be added:

My project builds! :cool: