The dotnet command line interface (CLI) has been the recommended way to build, test, pack, publish, etc. .NET applications ever since its release. The big advantage is, that the tool is cross-platform and doesn’t depend on Visual Studio. One downside is, that when you run dotnet build on Windows, the dotnet command will use its […]
MSBuild is a XML-based build system “scripting language” and is the basis of all C# project files, which means, that for an IDE (e.g. Visual Studio or JetBrains Rider) to “understand” your C# project structure, build options, and properties, it has to parse and process all the *.csproj, *.targets, and *.props XML files. The build […]
Once your Visual Studio solution starts growing, it often ends up integrating some maybe less than standard ways to do something. For example you introduce some custom MSBuild steps, output multiple projects to the same directory, or have things like WiX projects in your solution. Understanding what is actually going on when you build the […]
A good old fashioned RTFM would have probably saved me a bunch of time the other week, while playing around with MSBuild’s <Exec … /> task. In order for future me or anyone else randomly stumbling up on my blog, to not have to succumb to the same fate, let me share a few tips […]