Use uglifyjs in Publish Profile

Question

This is a snippet of my Publish Profile:

<Exec WorkingDirectory="$(_PackageTempDir)"
      Command="uglifyjs ..\..\..\..\js\file1.js ..\..\..\..\js\file2.js --mangle --reserved &quot;$&quot; --compress &gt; js\outfile.min.js" />

Certain files (say file1.js) is located outside my project and therefore is not copied to the _PackageTempDir. Here I have to ..\ up several levels to get there. I'm wondering if there is a good way to use an ItemGroup or full path that will allow me the same results.

The above code "works". It is just complicated and difficult to maintain. Looking for a better solution.

EDIT:

Based on Sayed's suggestions, I refined my profile to:

<ItemGroup>
    <UglifyJSFiles Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)..\..\js\mcm\mcm.js" />
    <UglifyJSFiles Include="$(_PackageTempDir)\js\main.js" />
</ItemGroup>

<Exec WorkingDirectory="$(_PackageTempDir)"
      Command="uglifyjs @(UglifyJSFiles,' ') &gt; js\app.min.js" />

But I am running into an issue because the paths contain spaces. How can I either quote the path strings or escape the spaces?

Answer 1

Here is an example showing a better approach

  <PropertyGroup>
    <JsFilesToUglifyRoot Condition=" '$(JsFilesToUglifyRoot)'=='' ">$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)\..\..\..\..\js\</JsFilesToUglifyRoot>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <JsFilesToUglify Include="$(JsFilesToUglifyRoot)**\*.js" />
  </ItemGroup>

  <Target Name="AfterBuild">
      <Message Text="Files: [@(JsFilesToUglify,' ')]" Importance="high" />
      <!-- If you need to quote the file paths use the transform below -->
      <Message Text="Files: [@(JsFilesToUglify->'&quot;%(FullPath)&quot;',' ')]" Importance="high" />
  </Target>

Here I define a new property JsFilesToUglify that is populated with the path you indicated above. Note the usage of the MSBuildThisFileDirectory reserved property. You should not rely on just ..\ as its value may be different in VS versus outside of VS. Also do not use the MSBuildProjectDirectory property, only MSBuildThisFileDirectory.

Then inside of the target I transform the list of files with @(JsFilesToUglify,' ') the ,' ' makes a space the separator between values like your command above.