Question

I am sure there is a simple answer to this, but my google-fu fails me.

I have a team project in TFS 2008 that builds OK when using the latest code, however I now have a need to fetch the previous versions of a subset of the files at build time. The subset of files are all labeled with the same label (“MyLabel” in the snippet below).

The snippet of XML I have added to be TFSBuild.proj file looks like this:

  <PropertyGroup>
    <BuildLabel>LMyLabel</BuildLabel>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <Target Name="BeforeCompile">
    <Get
        TeamFoundationServerUrl="$(TeamFoundationServerUrl)"
        BuildUri="$(BuildUri)"
        Condition=" '$(SkipGet)'!='true' "
        Workspace="$(WorkspaceName)"
        Recursive="$(RecursiveGet)"
        Force="$(ForceGet)"
        Version ="$(BuildLabel)" 
        Preview="false"
    />
  </Target>

This successfully fetches the subset of files into the source area, however it also deletes all other files in the source area.

i.e. the build process does the following:

1. fetch latest versions of all files into the source area
2. fetch labeled version of subset of files into the source area
3. delete all non-labeled files from the source area
4. run build

The build fails with the following error:
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\TeamBuild\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets(997,5): error MSB3491: Could not write lines to file “[build directory]\Sources\MySolution.sln.x64.Release.vsprops”. Could not find a part of the path ‘[build directory]\Sources\MySolution.x64.Release.vsprops’.

(which basically indicates that it can’t find the solution, because it’s been deleted)

I’ve tried adding the following snippet to the bottom of the XML:

  <PropertyGroup>
    <SkipClean>true</SkipClean>
    <SkipInitializeWorkspace>true</SkipInitializeWorkspace>
    <ForceGet>false</ForceGet>
  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

but the result is the same.

So, my question is: how do I build my solution when it is a mixture of latest versions and older, labeled versions? What am I missing?

(I realize I could just branch the baseline but for various reasons I would like to explore this approach first)

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Just a simple approach that come to mind:

1. Get your latest version to workspace1
2. Get your labeled version to workspace2
3. XCopy workspace1 content over workspace2 as a post-get action

What do you think? Worth the try?