Question

I have two buildtargets to check my code quality.

I run the following buildtargets every time i compile. This takes up too much time and i would like them to only check the files that did change.

In other words i want to filter files that did not change from the ItemGroup CppCheckFiles / LinterFiles.

  <Target Name="CppCheck">
    <ItemGroup>
      <CppCheckFiles Include="*main.c" />
      <CppCheckFiles Include="Source/*/*.c" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <Message Text="$(Configuration) starting." Importance="High" />
    <Exec Command="C:\Cppcheck\cppcheck.exe %(CppCheckFiles.FullPath)  --enable=style --template=&quot;{file}({line}): error:{severity}-{id}: {message}&quot;" />
  </Target>
  <Target Name="SPLint">
    <ItemGroup>
      <LinterFiles Include="*main.c" />
      <LinterFiles Include="Source/*/*.c" />
      <LinterFiles Include="Source/*/*.h" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <Message Text="$(Configuration) starting." Importance="High" />
    <Exec Command="splintCaller %(LinterFiles.FullPath)" />
  </Target>

I know that the regular build process does this and i wonder if i have to go so fas as to write my own task.

Answer 1

The solution is incremental Build. Where MSBuild compares Timestamps to exclude complete Buildtargets if nothing changed.

The following target creates a timesstamp for each file and skippes those files that did not change.

cppcheck.exe returns -1 if an error was detected and the timestamp is not written.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project DefaultTargets="CppCheck" ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">

    <ItemGroup>
      <CppCheckFiles Include="*main.c" />
      <CppCheckFiles Include="Source/*/*.c" />
    </ItemGroup>   

  <Target Name="CppCheck"
    Inputs="@(CppCheckFiles)" 
    Outputs="CCPCheck\%(CppCheckFiles.Filename)%(CppCheckFiles.Extension).stamp">
    <Exec Command="C:\Cppcheck\cppcheck.exe %(CppCheckFiles.FullPath)  --enable=style --template=&quot;{file}({line}): error:{severity}-{id}: {message}&quot;" />
    <MakeDir Directories="CCPCheck"/>
    <Touch Files="CCPCheck\%(CppCheckFiles.Filename)%(CppCheckFiles.Extension).stamp" AlwaysCreate = "true" />
  </Target>

</Project>