I am currently rewriting/cleaning up our TFS Builds, and I have noticed that we have a lot of duplication. I was wanting to create a "Common.targets" file which all our tfs builds (about 30) would then import.
I have tried a few things along these lines of:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" ToolsVersion="3.5">
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\TeamBuild\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets" />
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft.Sdc.Common.Tasks"/>
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\MSBuildCommunityTasks\MSBuild.Community.Tasks.Targets"/>
<Import Project="$(BuildDefinition).proj"/>
<PropertyGroup>
<ProjectName>Felix.LincsPublishingHandlers</ProjectName>
</PropertyGroup>
<Import Project="$(BuildDirectory)/src/BuildScripts/Common/CommonTargets.targets"/>
</Project>
Where:
$(BuildDefinition).proj -> contains project/environment specific properties (eg db connection strings, IP addresses)
CommonTargets.targets -> used across all the various projects. Defined in the Build Definition > Source Settings
However when I try to run on the TFS Build agent (version 2010 if anyone needs to know), it tries to run the statements before it has copied down the source files. So I get an error saying that the CommonTargets.targets file doesn't exist.
I've had a look around the web, and the solutions I have come across so far have suggestions that I would prefer not to use:
Copy the Common.targets file under into the same folder that has the TFSBuild.proj file
I have 20+ builds in different folders
I would like them all to use a single common.targets file (not 20 copies of the same file)
Copy the Common.targets file to a location on the build server(s) that the TFS Build Agents can access
I want to have it in source control with the rest of the build scripts and code.
As we are doing a sort of migration project, the Common.targets will change a bit over time, so best to have in source control
Has come across any similar issue of trying to import a Common.targets file that is kept in TFS source control?
Thanks for any help
First, you should consider upgrading TFS as mainstream support for TFS 2010 ends in a few months.
http://nakedalm.com/its-that-time-again-get-ready-to-upgrade-to-tfs-2015/
Second, you should consider updating your build system to use a modern method. Use the TFS 2013 template and PowerShell.
Related
I am trying to build .net multiple Solutions files in Jenkins using MSBuild plugin. I have installed and configured MSBuild. In the Build step - 'Build a Visual Studio project or Solution using MSBuild', under 'MSBuild Build FIle' how do we reference the build file(ex, test.txt) which have 5 solution file paths in it. When i give the path directly C:\test.txt, the build is failing with error
C:\test.txt(1,1): error MSB4025: The project file could not be loaded. Data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1.
0 Warning(s)
1 Error(s)
Time Elapsed 00:00:02.22
Build step 'Build a Visual Studio project or solution using MSBuild' marked build as failure
Finished: FAILURE
Below are the solution file paths mentioned in my test.txt file
C:\workspace\DotNet\Constants.sln
C:\workspace\DotNet\Security.sln
C:\workspace\DotNet\Library.sln
C:\workspace\DotNet\Mapping.sln
C:\workspace\DotNet\MapForce.sln
Could I build by mentioning five solution file paths in .txt file and referring the .txt file path by just using one 'Build a Visual Studio project or solution using MSBuild section'?
I have tried with command prompt manually it builds fine. Also, tried with 'Execute Windows batch command' option by batch commands it works fine and builds successfully, facing problem with 'Build a Visual Studio project or solution using MSBuild' when spefiying .txt file which has many solution file paths in it.
Appreciate your help on this.
MSBuild builds MSBuild files, written in xml, not text files (hence the error MSB4025). Luckily creating a file which can be used to build x other files is fairly simple, here is an example:
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" DefaultTargets="Build">
<ItemGroup>
<Sln Include="C:\workspace\DotNet\Constants.sln"/>
<Sln Include="C:\workspace\DotNet\Security.sln"/>
<Sln Include="C:\workspace\DotNet\Library.sln"/>
<Sln Include="C:\workspace\DotNet\Mapping.sln"/>
<Sln Include="C:\workspace\DotNet\MapForce.sln"/>
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="Build">
<MsBuild Projects="#(Sln)" Targets="Build" Properties="Configuration=Release;Platform=Win32" BuildInParallel="True" />
</Target>
</Project>
This is just written in a straightforward way, shorter but possibly more complicated code might apply. E.g. to just build all solutions in the C:\workspace\DotNet directory you'd just write <Sln Include="C:\workspace\DotNet\*.sln"/> instead of manually spelling out each of them. Or if all of them reside in that directory you could include them by filename only, e.g. <Sln Include="Constants.sln"/> and then add the directory when expanding the list like Projects="#(Sln->'c:\workspace\dotnet\%(Identity)')".
As you can see this builds the Win32|Release version, change that by altering the properties. Also not the BuildInParallel switch: only use this if the solutions don't depend on each other.
I've been pulling my hair out on this for a while now. I'm trying to implement a continuous integration and deployment pipeline using TeamCity and Octopus Deploy. I am 99% there, except for one problem. I am using the standard msbuild runner of teamcity, configured to use the version 12 of msbuild.
I need to include the web.config transforms in the published output so they can be packaged into a nuget package for octopus deploy. I do not want the transforms to be applied by msbuild.
I am not using Octopack to create packages. I'm using the built-in teamcity nuget packager. So I'm publishing the website to a filesystem folder and then creating the package from the files in this folder. However, no matter what I do I cannot get msbuild to include the web.config transform files in the publish (I am using Octopus Deploy to perform the transforms, so I don't want msbuild to perform them).
I have verified that all the transform files (Web.Release.config, etc..) are marked as "Content". I have NOT marked them to copy always, because doing this copies them to the bin folder, not the root folder where they belong.
I have removed the /p:Configuration= property from the msbuild command line as I've read that is required for transforms to be applied. my parameters to msbuild look like this:
/p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:PublishProfile=Deployment
There is nothing in the publish profile that seems to relate to transforms. The publish profile contains the filesystem location to publish to.
Any suggestions here?
Note: I've given up and found a different solution, but I'm leaving this open in case anyone has any input.
You could create a custom .nuspec file and reference the files that you want to include from there.
My suggestion would be to have the .nuspec file in the same directory as the web.config / web.release.config files, and make the paths relative from there.
So if you publish to a directory called /output you could use rules like this
<files>
<file src="*.config" target="\" />
<file src="publish\*.*" target="\" />
</files>
So nuget pack nuspecPath would become the way to pack the project
NuSpec Reference
Hope this helps
I have two different ways to deploy my web app - one via IIS Web Deploy, hooked up via MSBuild arguments in a custom build template, and using the One-click publish built into Visual Studio. I have also installed the Slow Cheetah transforms, and can successfully transform Web.config files.
However, I'm stuck on the Nlog.config files. If I use One-click publish, the webapp deploys fine with the updated config file. However, using the actual build process, nothing gets transformed. The source Nlog.config file is copied to the drop locations, the deployment package, and the output folder on the remote server.
The .csproj file has Nlog set up the same way as web.config, i.e.
<Content Include="NLog.config">
<TransformOnBuild>true</TransformOnBuild>
<Content Include="Web.config">
<SubType>Designer</SubType>
<TransformOnBuild>true</TransformOnBuild>
<Content Include="NLog.Debug.config">
<DependentUpon>NLog.config</DependentUpon>
<IsTransformFile>True</IsTransformFile>
The SlowCheetah preview function lets me know that my transform files are well-formed, as well. Not sure what I could be missing.
Well, I really biffed that one. After much poking, I found that I needed to include the following -
<Import Project="TransformsFiles.targets" />
<PropertyGroup>
<TransformOnBuild>true</TransformOnBuild>
</PropertyGroup>
right above the final Project tag, as Sayed mentions here. This will actually transform the files, but they still won't deploy successfully. I'll have to add in some post-build events or something to take care of that. Not the best solution, but it's working, at least.
UPDATE: Just for comprehension, to deploy the files, I had to edit the .csproj file to include a new target and dump them manually to the remote server, but only after the transformation had completed. Take a look at your log file to see what's going on, then just pick up the transformed file and move it to the remote server. That part of the code looks like this -
<Target Name="PostTransformNLogConfig" AfterTargets="TransformAllFiles">
<Copy Condition="Exists('d:\Builds\Binaries\NLog.config' )"
SourceFiles="d:\Builds\NLog.config"
DestinationFiles="\\remoteserver\NLog.config" />
</Target>
I'm using currently VS 2010 and TFS 2008. In one of our solutions we have a .csproj file with the following:
<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
<TransformXml Source="..\..\..\ProjectX\ProjectXWebSite\ProjectXWebSite\Web.config" Transform="..\..\..\ProjectX\ProjectXWebSite\ProjectXWebSite\Web.$(Configuration).config" Destination="..\..\..\ProjectX\ProjectXWebSite\ProjectXWebSite\Web.$(Configuration).config.transformed" />
</Target>
<PropertyGroup>
<PostBuildEvent>xcopy "C:\Source\Projects\ProjectX\ProjectXWebSite\ProjectXWebSite\Web.$(Configuration).config.transformed" "C:\Source\Projects\ProjectX\ProjectXWebSite\ProjectXWebSite\Web.config" /R /Y</PostBuildEvent>
</PropertyGroup>
This works fine when building locally, but TFS is failing when it reaches <PostBuildEvent>, because this path is not available on the build machine. How can I get TFS to either skip the entire "BeforeBuild" or just set the <PostBuildEvent> to an empty string, so that the build will work successfully when built locally in VS2010 and via TFS 2008? I've tried within TFSBuild.proj to set <Target Name="BeforeBuild" />, but this doesn't work.
I'd recommend against using absolute pathnames in your projects - relative paths will make them relocatable and headaches like this will disappear.
i.e. In the post-build xcopy, just change C:\Source\Projects\ProjectX to ..\..\..\ProjectX
(You can't rely on always being able to put your code on C: - I've had to move my code from C: to D: or E: due to lack of disk space or installation of a new drive on several occasions, and using relative paths has made this process very easy. It's also very handy at times to be able to have multiple copies (different versions or branches) of your source code on your PC at once and still be able to build them all)
Our application uses a combination of ASP.NET and Flex platforms.
I am able to successfully use the build service to build and deploy the .NET web site. That works fine. However, we also have our ActionScript files in TFS and I've created a batch file to successfully compile the ActionScript from the command-line.
I want to create two separate build definitions for the ASP.NET and Flex compilation. Flex obviously doesn't have an SLN file--can I create a build definition file from scratch to support the Flex compile batch file without a solution file? The tasks are fairly simple to create (see below), but I've never built a customized Team Build script without using the Create wizard--and the Create wizard expects you to supply a solution file, which I don't have.
My build script would be very straight-forward:
Get the latest version of the ActionScript files
Run the ActionScript compile batch file
Copy the ActionScript files to the deploy folder
Absolutely. TFSBuild.proj is an MSBuild file that calls your solution build in TFS. You can modify that to build whatever you want using MSBuild, which is the language which .vbproj and .csproj files are written in. There's a wealth of tasks that MSBuild allows you to use...
No you don't need a solution file in getting a build done using TFSBuild. A very simple project file could look like this (courtesy Aaron Hallberg):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" ToolsVersion="3.5">
<Target Name="EndToEndIteration">
<Exec Command="SomeScript.cmd" />
</Target>
</Project>
Please investigate this page from Aarons blog. The default targets in a tfsbuild.proj file is actually defined in a "common" targets file and imported into the projfile by this instruction:
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v8.0\TeamBuild\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets" />
If the import is removed you only need the EndToEndIteration target to get tfsbuild running....
All the best
/Niels