Versioning CommonAssemblyInfo.cs and MSBuild

Question

So I have a CommonAssemblyInfo.cs linked into all the projects in my solution and is dynamically generated by my rake/albacore scripts which is not checked into source control.

I also have a CommonAssemblyInfo.cs.local for use when there is no ruby available, mainly to be used by devs.

Is it possible to have a msbuild task or something that runs before any of the other project compilation that will copy CommonAssemblyInfo.cs.local to CommonAssemblyInfo.cs before trying to compile my solution? I hate having to have a command you have to just know about and type in order to open and buidl the solution in Visual Studio.

UPDATE So I ended up using a batch file as a solution wide pre-build event as described here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2295454/visual-studio-solution-wide-pre-build-event, it checks to see if CommonAssemblyInfo.cs exists and if not copies CommonAssemblyInfo.cs.local to CommonAssemblyInfo.cs just using a simple batch file.

Answer 1

Are you talking about compilation in the VS IDE, or compilation through team build? If you are talking about team build, then you can use the "AfterGet" event as a place to use the standard "copy" msbuild task. If you are talking about the VS IDE, then you can still use the "copy" msbuild task.

Answer 2

This is the solution I ended up with.

I have each project in the solution link to a CommonAssemblyInfo.cs which is automagically generated for me by my build scripts (rake + albacore).

Since I cannot check CommonAssemblyInfo.cs into source control, I create a CommonAssemblyInfo.cs.local.

Simple solution: create go.bat which copies CommonAssemblyInfo.cs.local to CommonAssemblyInfo.cs that devs must run the first time they check out the project before opening the solution in VS.

For purely political reasons, if I did this people would have had hissy fits about me doing "nonstandard" things. Complex solution follows:

I created a project in the solution called PreBuild which every project in the solution depends on. This forces the build order to be such that this project is built first. This project contains a pre-build event which calls the following batch file:

echo verifying CommonVersionInfo.cs exists
cd
IF NOT EXIST ..\..\..\CommonAssemblyInfo.cs COPY ..\..\..\CommonAssemblyInfo.cs.local ..\..\..\CommonAssemblyInfo.cs

So now any developers who choose to keep their heads in the sand may checkout the project and blissfully open it up in VS unaware that any build scripts exist at all.