Notes on MSBuild

• When building software applications, you will always need to know two pieces of information: what is being built and what build parameters are being used. Typically, files are being built, and these would be contained in MSBuild items. Build parameters, like Configuration or OutputPath, are contained in MSBuild properties.
• When you declare static properties, they are always contained in a PropertyGroup element, which occurs directly within the Project element.

<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<AppServer>\\sayedApp</AppServer>
</PropertyGroup>
<PropertyGroup>
<WebServer>\\sayedWeb</WebServer>
</PropertyGroup>
</Project>

• MSBuild fundamentally has two execution elements: tasks and targets. A task is the smallest unit of work in an MSBuild file, and a target is a sequential set of tasks. A task must always be contained within a target.

• When MSBuild is installed, you are given many tasks out of the box, such as Copy, Move, Exec, ResGen, and Csc. You can find a list of these tasks at the MSBuild Task Reference (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7z253716.aspx).

• Reserved properties:

• Items are usually file-based references, but they can be used for other purposes as well. If you create a project using Visual Studio, you may notice that you see many ItemGroup elements as well as PropertyGroup elements. The Item Groupelement contains all the statically defined items. Static item definitions are those declared as a direct child of the Projectelement. Dynamic items are those defined inside a target. When you define a property, you are declaring a key-value pair, which is a one-to-one relationship. When you declare items, one item can contain a list of many values. In terms of code, a property is analogous to a variable and an item to an array.

<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<ItemGroup>
　　<SolutionFile Include="..\InsideMSBuild.sln" />
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="PrintSolutionInfo">
　　<Message Text="SolutionFile: @(SolutionFile)" />
</Target>
</Project>

• MSBuild.exe Command-Line Usage

• When you create an MSBuild file, you should follow these conventions for specifying the extension of the file:

1. .proj 　　 　　A project file
2. .targets 　　 A file that contains shared targets, which are imported into other files
3. .props 　　 　Default settings for a build process
4. .tasks 　　　 A file that contains UsingTask declarations

• MSBuild processes the entire file for properties and items beforeany targets are executed.
• When the MSBuild engine begins to process a build file, it is evaluated in a top-down fashion in a multi-pass manner. These passes are described in order in the following list:

1. Load all environment and global properties, and toolset properties. In Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, for example, C++ defines several properties in the MSBuild 4.0 toolset.
2. Evaluate properties and process imports as encountered
3. Evaluate item definitions
4. Evaluate items
5. Evaluate using tasks
6. Start build and reading targets