I am in the process of build a script for a fairly big project. One of the projects require an Entity Framework Model to be compiled into a library. Due to the way the build server works, all builds are hand crafted to manage the various deployment scenarios without affecting the developers and the project files.
Is there anyway to generate the EF Model using an MSBuild task without using the project file generated by Visual Studio? Currently the actual assembly compiles using a CSC task, however the actual deployed application fails because the EF Model is not included in the compiled assembly.
Any pointers into which Targets or Build Tasks can be used to generate the model and create the required resources to embed in the assembly?
Please Note
The project compiles fine in Visual Studio, however using the project file on the build server is not an option, as there is various changes that needs to be made to the project at deployment time, and this is controlled through a custom build script outside of the development teams control. This has worked succesfully for a few projects, however the EF Model is causing some headaches in this specific scenario.
Update
The current solution is not ideal but works. The Project file has been modified to copy the EF Model resources to a folder in the project on a new release build, which is then checked into source control. When the build script runs on the server the EF models are embedded into the assembly. This seems to be a workable workaround for the moment.