Question

Is there a way that I can capture build output, i.e. the text that is output to the Output Window? Right now my only alternative to copy and pasting the text from the Output Window, is to build from a command line and redirect the output to a file.

A quick look at the C# compiler command line options does not reveal any option for specifying an output file for messages like warnings and errors, so I’m guessing VS hooks into the csc.exe process’s output stream, to capture its text and write it to the Output Window. Maybe there is a gap where a custom application can also hook in.

Answer 1

Add the following macro to VS EnvironmentEvent Module (Tools->Macros->Macros IDE…) or ALT+F11. The macro runs after a build completes whether successfully or not.

This will pipe the text output from the output window, more specifically the Build view of the output window to build_output.log. Other IDE Guids can be found on MSDN.

As a reference, the solution was based on HOWTO: Get an OutputWindowPane to output some string from a Visual Studio add-in or macro

Visual Studio provides an Output
window (“View”, “Other Windows”,
“Output” menu) to show messages, debug
information, etc. That window provides
several panes that can be selected
through a combobox, such as “Source
Control”, “Build”, “Debug”, etc.

The automation model (EnvDTE) provides
the EnvDTE.OutputWindow,
EnvDTE.OutputWindowPanes and
EnvDTE.OutputWindowPane classes.

 Private Sub BuildEvents_OnBuildDone(ByVal Scope As EnvDTE.vsBuildScope, ByVal Action As EnvDTE.vsBuildAction) Handles BuildEvents.OnBuildDone

        Const BUILD_OUTPUT_PANE_GUID As String = "{1BD8A850-02D1-11D1-BEE7-00A0C913D1F8}"

        Dim t As OutputWindowPane
        Dim txtOutput As TextDocument
        Dim txtSelection As TextSelection
        Dim vsWindow As Window

        vsWindow = DTE.Windows.Item(EnvDTE.Constants.vsWindowKindOutput)

        Dim vsOutputWindow As OutputWindow
        Dim objOutputWindowPane As OutputWindowPane
        Dim objBuildOutputWindowPane As OutputWindowPane
        vsOutputWindow = DirectCast(vsWindow.Object, OutputWindow)

        For Each objOutputWindowPane In vsOutputWindow.OutputWindowPanes
            If objOutputWindowPane.Guid.ToUpper = BUILD_OUTPUT_PANE_GUID Then
                objBuildOutputWindowPane = objOutputWindowPane
                Exit For
            End If
        Next


        txtOutput = objBuildOutputWindowPane.TextDocument
        txtSelection = txtOutput.Selection

        txtSelection.StartOfDocument(False)
        txtSelection.EndOfDocument(True)
        objBuildOutputWindowPane.OutputString(Date.Now)

        txtSelection = txtOutput.Selection
        solutionDir = IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(DTE.Solution.FullName)

        My.Computer.FileSystem.WriteAllText(solutionDir & "\build_output.log", txtSelection.Text, False)


        MsgBox(txtSelection.Text)

    End Sub

The above can be tweaked to probably output build info on a per project basis as well. File names for build logs etc can probably be configured based on the current project being built (not too sure about this) and above all you can probably keep the build history.

There a whole of VS events that one can hook into, so the type of things one can do are endless

This was tested on VS2010 Ultimate…