Copy directory structure from list of files using MSBuild

Question

This is slightly complicated than structure copy, hence a separate question.

We have this item group which is a collection of files to be copied.

<ItemGroup>
   <FilesToBeCopied Include="
       C:\SomeFolder\a.exe;
       C:\SomeFolder\d.dll;
       C:\SomeFolder\AFolder\*;
       C:\SomeFolder\e.dll;
       C:\SomeFolder\some.xml;>
   </FilesToBeCopied>
</ItemGroup>

We need a copy task, something may be something similar to the line below

<Copy SourceFiles="@(FilesToBeCopied)" DestinationFolder="bin\%(FilesToBeCopied.RecursiveDir)" SkipUnchangedFiles="true"/>

So that the final structure needed is:

somelocation\bin\a.exe; 
somelocation\bin\d.dll;
somelocation\bin\AFolder\*;
somelocation\bin\e.dll;
somelocation\bin\some.xml;

Is there a way to achieve this? Because the above copy statement copies all files to bin\ folder and doesn't create the AFolder* structure within bin.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 27 '15 at 13:12

Turns out the fix was quite simple. Just use an item group that has wild cards ** around the folder.

<ItemGroup>
   <FilesToBeCopied Include="
       C:\SomeFolder\a.exe;
       C:\SomeFolder\d.dll;
       C:\SomeFolder\**\AFolder\**;
       C:\SomeFolder\e.dll;
       C:\SomeFolder\some.xml;>
   </FilesToBeCopied>
</ItemGroup>

Copy directory structure from list of files using MSBuild

1 Answers1