Question

Background: I manage a fairly large solution. Every so often, people add a DLL reference to a project in the solution where they should’ve added a project reference. I want to issue a warning in such case. I want to do it by finding all reference with ‘bin\debug’ in their HintPath*. I know that references are Items in ItemGroup, with metadata “HintPath”.

I expected something like this to work:

<Warning Text="Reference %(Reference.Identity) should be a project reference. HintPath: %(Reference.HintPath)"
         Condition="%(Reference.HintPath).IndexOf('bin\debug') != -1"/>

However, Seems like I can’t use string function IndexOf like that. I tried many permutations of the above, without success.

• Edit: I know this check is not full-proof, but I just want to reduce honest mistakes.

Answer 1

Using MSBuild 4.0 Property Functions it is possible to do string comparisons:

<Target Name="AfterBuild">

  <Message Text="Checking reference... '%(Reference.HintPath)'" Importance="high" />

  <Warning Text="Reference %(Reference.Identity) should be a project reference. HintPath: %(Reference.HintPath)"
            Condition="$([System.String]::new('%(Reference.HintPath)').Contains('\bin\$(Configuration)'))" />

</Target>