Question

I have a situation where I need to copy a few specific files in a MSBuild script, but they may or may not exist. If they don’t exist it’s fine, I don’t need them then. But the standard <copy> task throws an error if it cannot find each and every item in the list…

Answer 1

Use the Exists condition on Copy task.

<CreateItem Include='*.xml'>   <Output ItemName='ItemsThatNeedToBeCopied' TaskParameter='Include'/> </CreateItem>  <Copy SourceFiles='@(ItemsThatNeedToBeCopied)'       DestinationFolder='$(OutputDir)'       Condition='Exists('%(RootDir)%(Directory)%(Filename)%(Extension)')'/>