Team Build, copy file target issue - tfs

Question

I have this team build target setup to after compile
<Target Name="AfterCompile">
<Copy SourceFiles="$(SolutionRoot)\Development_VS2008\MyCompanyName.SharePoint.12" DestinationFolder="c:\testing"></Copy>
</Target>
I want the folder structure copied from source to destination...
Amazingly I am getting this error
Could not copy the file "C:\TFS\NightlyBuild\Sources\Development_VS2008\MyCompanyName.SharePoint.12\"
to the destination file "c:\testing\", because the destination is a folder instead of a file.
To copy the source file into a folder, consider using the DestinationFolder parameter instead of DestinationFiles.
As you can see I am indeed using the destinationfolder parameter, does anyone know what I am doing wrong?

Answer 1

I think it might be just because SourceFiles is a directory rather than the files you want to copy. Try this:
<Target Name="AfterCompile">
<ItemGroup>
<FilesToCopy Include="$(SolutionRoot)\Development_VS2008\MyCompanyName.SharePoint.12\**\*.*"/>
</ItemGroup>
<Copy SourceFiles="#(FilesToCopy)" DestinationFolder="c:\testing\%(RecursiveDir)"/>
</Target>

Answer 2

This error happened to me not under Team Foundation project, but standalone one, and when I add new .dll file with build action ContentWithTargetPath. I wanted this library to be included in my output directory. Record for this action appears in one of the ItemGroup section in .csproj file like:
<ContentWithTargetPath Include="Resources\Libraries\libName.dll">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</ContentWithTargetPath>
But for some reason this is not enough to ContentWithTargetPath option works fine (I saw the explanation about it somewhere in StackOverflow, but don't remember where). You should manually add TargetPath subsection to ContentWithTargetPath like this:
<ContentWithTargetPath Include="Resources\Libraries\libName.dll">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
<TargetPath>libName.dll</TargetPath>
</ContentWithTargetPath>
TargetPath subsection doesn't appear by IntelliSense while editing the .csproj file in Visual Studio, as well as it doesn't appear in libName.dll's properties window, so you should add this subsection by hand. This scenario comes out even in my Visual Studio Community 2017.
PS. You can edit .csproj file while in Visual Studio - unload this project and choose "Edit YourProjectName.csproj" option (right mouse click on unloaded project). Edit and save .csproj file, then reload the project.

Answer 3

You need something such as this:
<CreateItem Include="someFolder\**\*.*">
<Output ItemName="files" TaskParameter="Include" />
</CreateItem>
<Copy SourceFiles="#(files)" DestinationFiles="#(files->'C:\folder\%(relativedir)%(Filename)%(Extension)')" SkipUnchangedFiles="true" />
Or alternatively I've found the easiest way (if you want to be a bit more stringent about what to include/ exclude) is with some custom MSBuild tasks I've written: http://www.aaron-powell.com/blog.aspx?cat=AaronPowell.MSBuild.Tasks
You provide a source directory, a destination direction (support for network shares is provided) and file names/ extensions to exclude.
It's mainly because Team Build makes a real mess (particularly with web apps) when it run and it's not really possible to use the standard MSBuild copy tasks.

Answer 4

We are experiencing a lot of problems with postbuild xcopy commands. And we decided to avoid xcopy commands.
We are now including the files (which we want to copy) into project, and we are setting copy local property to "Copy if newer" and target directory (directory structure must be same in project)
It helps a lot.
Maybe it also fit your situation.

Answer 5

Copy task doesn't support copying directories apparently (as it's based on 'copy'), and xcopy will fails sometimes due to long filenames in source (>256 characters).
I did this (with robocopy):
<Exec WorkingDirectory="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)"
Command='robocopy $(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\Main $(DropLocation) /S /COPY:DATS /NP /NFL /NDL /v' ContinueOnError="true" />

Answer 6

I had exactly the same message:
Error 103 Could not copy the file "obj\Release\xxxx.dll" to the destination file "bin\Release\xxxx.dll", because the destination is a folder instead of a file. To copy the source file into a folder, consider using the DestinationFolder parameter instead of DestinationFiles. xxxx
It happened (I don´t know why) that I had in the release folder another folder with the same name of the assembly (including extension), so Visual Studio could not create the assembly there. It is not a configuration in the project or solution, so I just deleted the folder (that I don´t know how it was created) and it worked.