Question

Is it possible to write a Condition in msbuild that checks if a certain process exists? Or, alternatively, does anyone know of such a task?

Today, my process creates a pid file, which existence I check. But I do not like all the extra maintenance involved with such a file.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

There is no such task in MSBuild Extension Pack or in MSBuild Community Tasks. But you could easily create a such one. Something like this:

using System.Diagnostics; using Microsoft.Build.Framework; using Microsoft.Build.Utilities;  namespace StackOverflow.MSBuild {   public class IsProcessRunning : Task   {     private string processName;     private bool isRunning;      [Required]     public string ProcessName     {       get { return processName; }       set { processName = value; }     }      [Output]     public bool IsRunning     {       get { return isRunning; }     }      public override bool Execute()     {       if(string.IsNullOrEmpty(processName))       {         Log.LogError('ProcessName could not be empty');         return false;       }        foreach(Process clsProcess in Process.GetProcesses())       {         if(clsProcess.ProcessName.Contains(processName))         {           isRunning = true;         }       }        return true;     }   } } 

And you use it like that:

<UsingTask AssemblyFile='$(Task_Assembly_path)'          TaskName='StackOverflow.MSBuild.IsProcessRunning' />  <Target Name='TestTask'>   <IsProcessRunning ProcessName='${Process}'>     <Output ItemName='Result' TaskParameter='IsRunning'/>   </IsProcessRunning>    <Message Text='Process ${Process} is running'            Condition=''${Result}' == 'true''/> </Target>