How to tell MSBuild where to put my compiled files?

Question

Hi, I'm trying to use Nant to compile an ASP.NET MVC app, so far my build script just runs ms build and runs some other tasks, however I want my compiled files to be put in a "build" directory, how can I tell msbuild where to put the compiled files?

Answer 1

Looking here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms164311.aspx

it specifies that you can set msbuild to override the output dir setting in your project file, like so:

/properties:OutputDir=bin\Debug

Is this what you want?

Answer 2

you can put this in your project file (or in an imported project file if you want reuse), it will override both the path for the executable/dll and the path where the .obj files etc go.

<PropertyGroup>
  <OutputPath>c:\bin</OutputPath>
  <BaseIntermediateOutputPath>c:\temp\$(AssemblyName)</BaseIntermediateOutputPath>
</PropertyGroup>

Answer 3

If you are using the <msbuild> task from NAntContrib, then you can set the OutputDir property like this:

<msbuild project="path-to-sln-or-csproj-or-msbuild" target="Build">
  <properties>
    <property name="OutputDir" value="build-outdir-dir" />
  </properties>
</msbuild>