MSBuild - how to force "AfterBuild" target when I do deployment?

Question

I have the following setup: ASP.Net MVC .Net 4.0 solution with 5 projects in it, and several solution configurations (Site1-Stage, Site1-Live, Site2-Stage, etc). The reason for this is simple - we deploy same codebase to multiple servers with different config settings.

To manage these configurations, I use the approach described by Troy Hunt in his You're deploying it wrong! TeamCity, Subversion & Web Deploy part 1: Config transforms article. In 2 words - I do NOT have web.config in my SVN repo, instead I have Web.Base.Config, Web.Site1-Stage.Config, etc and XmlTransformation task in project AfterBuild target. During the build, the required web.config is generated based on selected configuration:

 <UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
  <Target Name="AfterBuild">
    <TransformXml Source="Web.Base.config" Transform="Web.$(Configuration).config" Destination="Web.config" StackTrace="true" />
  </Target>

Here comes the problem: when I'm execute MSBuild like this:

msbuild MySolution.sln /P:configuration=Site1-Stage /t:rebuild

all goes well, web.config is properly generated for the Site1-Stage configuration. However, if I run this command:

msbuild MySolution.sln /P:configuration=Site1-Stage /t:rebuild /P:DeployOnBuild=True

I get the following error:

"MySolution.sln" (rebuild target) (1) -> "MySolution\MyWebProj.csproj" (Rebuild target) (3) -> (PreTransformWebConfig target) -> C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.5\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets(1399,5): error : Copying file Web.config to obj\Site1-Stage\TransformWebConfig\original\Web.config failed. Could not find file 'Web.config'. [MySolution\MyWebProj.csproj]

I tried to explicitly add "AfterBuild" target into MSBuild command line:

msbuild MySolution.sln /P:configuration=Site1-Stage /t:rebuild,AfterBuild /P:DeployOnBuild=True

but it resulted in the same error.

Why do I need this: it's a very isolated example, and in reality I'm trying to setup automated publishing from TeamCity CI server. I think if I add new build step with "Visual Studio (sln)" runner BEFORE my current publishing step, that would work, it will first rebuild the project (and generate web.config) - and then publish. However, i have lots of publishing steps (around 20 now) and I would like to avoid that. My understanding is that "Publish" process does the build as part of it, so I would like to "reuse" that.

Question is: how should I modify my MSBuild command line to force config transformation to happen?

Thank you.

You AfterBuild target does not have any outputs. It seems that MSBuild skips this target thinking that it is up-to-date. Add outputs (Web.Config in your case) to your AfterBuild target outputs. — vharavy
Maybe use "BeforeBuild"? BTW do you have web.config included in csproj? I believe most publish activities relies on items in project rather than in folder - though didn't check it. If not - you can include web.config in project, while still have excluded it from source control — Lanorkin
@Lanorkin - that worked! Thanks a lot - please post your comment as an answer. — avs099

Lanorkin Lanorkin · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-12T04:44:43

Maybe use "BeforeBuild"?

BTW do you have web.config included in csproj? I believe most publish activities relies on items in project rather than in folder. You can include web.config in project, while still have excluded it from source control.

MSBuild - how to force "AfterBuild" target when I do deployment?

1 Answers