Item groups in msbuild

Question

Hi,

I have the following item group:

  <ItemGroup>
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\*.ashx"/>
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\*.config"/>
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\bin\*.dll"/>
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\bin\*.exe"/>
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\bin\*.pdb"/>
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\bin\*.config"/>   
  </ItemGroup>

and the following copy target:

<Copy SourceFiles="@(ReleaseFiles)" DestinationFiles="@(ReleaseFiles->'\\$(DeploymentMachine)\C$\Program Files\MyApp\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)')" />

but the problem is that the bin directory is not being preserved (all the files end up in the top level directory).

Please note that I need to use the same item group for creating the zipfile:

<Zip Files="@(ReleaseFiles)" ZipFileName="$(server)\$(BUILD_NUMBER).$(BUILD_VCS_NUMBER)\myApp.zip" WorkingDirectory="MyApp"/>

which works fine. How can I get the copy to work as well?

Answer 1

It seems that mixing the path depth in your

<ReleaseFiles/>

breaks recursion.

Try this:

<ItemGroup>
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\**\*.ashx" />
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\**\*.config" />
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\**\*.dll" />
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\**\*.exe" />
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\**\*.pdb" />
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\**\*.config" />
</ItemGroup>

<Copy SorceFiles="@(ReleaseFiles)" DestinationFiles="@(ReleaseFiles->'\\$(DeploymentMachine)\C$\Program Files\MyApp\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)')" />

Hope this solves your problem.

UPDATE

I just read, that using UNC paths may also cause this issue ... but it should be fixed in 3.5

Answer 2

You need to make the MSBuild engine think that bin is part of the recursive folder. In order to do that, add a * after the bin folder like this:

<ItemGroup>
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\*.ashx"/>
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\*.config"/>
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\bin*\*.dll"/>
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\bin*\*.exe"/>
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\bin*\*.pdb"/>
    <ReleaseFiles Include="MyApp\bin*\*.config"/>   
</ItemGroup>