How do I set up the MSBuild script to use the outdirectory's set in the csproj files while building the entire solution?

Question

I'm not sure how I can get the MSBuild script to use the outputpath, outputdirectory values from the CSproj files. I've seen examples where I set the outputpath in the MSscript but that dumps the all the output in one big folder. I want the individual projects to have their own output paths and MSbuild to build the solution in such a way that the output for the projects and created in the corresponding output directories. Thanks.

Answer 1

There is not an easy way. One option is to extend MSBuild and have it copy the output from each project to a common folder.

If you look at the Microsoft.Common.Targets file in the c:\Windows\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v4.*\ you can see how it does load a custom targets file at both the beginning and end of that folder. If you add a Custom.After.Microsoft.Common.Targets to the C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\v4\ folder you can have it load a file say $(SolutionDir)\Solution.targets. This will allow you to extend each solution differently and you can add any custom actions you want inside every solution that applies to every project. I use this and it works great.

Answer 2

Thanks for your answers guys. I found a way to run the solution without giving a specific output folder. I had to fix the output folder path to /bin in the csprojs and then running MSbuild with the solution was able to pick up those paths from the csprojs and build the output into those folders.