Create xml with artifact files

Question

I have a hard time getting any information on how to do this.

I want to include a task in my build pipeline that creates an XML file that lists each file of the resulting artifact along with some metadata like checksum, size, etc.

Something like this:

<files>
  <file>
    <name>file1.dll</name>
    <path></path>
    <size></size>
    <checksum></checksum>
  </file>
  <file>
    <name>file2.dll</name>
    <path></path>
    <size></size>
    <checksum></checksum>
  </file>
</files>

I'm thinking I probably need to use a powershell script but how would I go about getting the list of files? I would have to iterate through the list and populate the xml file with that list.

Or is there some task I use to achieve this?

This seems so use-case specific that its 99.9% likely that you should roll your own, and yes powershell seems appropriate for this. — sommmen, Jan 06 '21 at 09:36
Hi @Tralli, How are things going? Have you tried the suggestion in my answer? Is it helpful to you? Please try it, and any progress, feel free to tell me. — Bright Ran-MSFT, Jan 29 '21 at 06:38

Bright Ran-MSFT · Answer 1 · 2021-01-07T03:21:06.060

Place the resulting artifact files into a specific directory on the agent, such as $(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory).

In this directory, you can try the steps below:

List all files in the directory and subdirectories using the PowerShell command Get-ChildItem.
```
Get-ChildItem -Attributes !Directory -Path path/to/dir -Recurse -Name
```
In a loop, do the following operations for each files:

Gets the properties of the file using the PowerShell command Get-ItemProperty.
```
Get-ItemProperty -Path path/to/file | Format-List
```
Or using Get-ItemPropertyValue to get the properties you specify.
```
Get-ItemPropertyValue -Path path/to/file -Name Property1,Property2,Property3,...
```
Write the properties of the file to the XML file. About working with XML files in PowerShell, below are few related articles as reference.
- https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/how-to-add-data-to-an-xml-file-using-windows-powershell/
- https://virtualengine.co.uk/updating-and-writing-xml-files-with-powershell/

Create xml with artifact files

1 Answers1