Question

I have a solution with more than 100 c# projects. We always make CopyLocal option false for all assemblies to avoid some issues. Sometimes some developers chec-in project files with CopyLocal option True for assemblies. This creates issues while running the software later

Is it possible to make the the build activity fail, if CopyLocal option is True?

We are automating the build proess with MS Build and Cruise control net.

Answer 1

Short answer: Yes!

I’m no MSBuild expert but I know how to do this with NAnt. It’s pretty simple and there shouldn’t be much difference achieving the same result with MSBuild. This is the process:

1. Parse the solution file to get the path of all project files contained in the solution. Unfortunately .sln files aren’t xml but they’re structured anyway.
2. For each project file: Parse the project file to get all references of the project and check for CopyLocal = True. If there are any: fail. Since .csproj files are xml this can be done easily via an XPath expression. For assembly references with CopyLocal set to True:

count(/Project/ItemGroup/Reference/Private[text()="True"])

For project references:

count(/Project/ItemGroup/ProjectReference/Private[text()="True"])

If the result is greater than 0 you have references with CopyLocal set to True so fail the build. Pitfall: Be aware that CopyLocal is also considered True if node Private is missing.