Question

Using the following MSBuild script that is invoked from the command line I am trying to run the publish option which works great inside of Visual Studio 2012.

<Target Name="BuildRelease">
<MSBuild 
     Properties="Configuration=Release;DeployOnBuild=True;
         DeployTarget=Publish;CreatePackageOnPublish=True" 
     StopOnFirstFailure="true" 
     Projects="$(BuildDirectory)\BigWave.ALL.sln"></MSBuild>
</Target>

my Project.pubxml is…

<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" 
         xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <WebPublishMethod>FileSystem</WebPublishMethod>
    <SiteUrlToLaunchAfterPublish />
    <publishUrl>c:\temp\Deploy</publishUrl>
    <DeleteExistingFiles>False</DeleteExistingFiles>
  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

Project.pubxml.user is…

<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" 
         xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <LastUsedBuildConfiguration>Release</LastUsedBuildConfiguration>
    <LastUsedPlatform>Any CPU</LastUsedPlatform>
    <TimeStampOfAssociatedLegacyPublishXmlFile />
  </PropertyGroup>
...snipped ItemGroup which has all my files and last timestamp of publish
</Project>

Is there something wrong with these files that would prevent the Publish option from working? The script runs with no errors, but when I look in the C:\temp\Deploy directory, there are no files.

Answer 1

I wasn’t able to get the publish to run, but looking at the output from Visual Studio I think I have found an alternate solution. Turns out the obj\Release\AspnetCompileMerge folder has a deployable and clean version of the project. It contains byte identical files to the final output folder.

I did have to change my msbuild script to include the DeployOnBuild option…

<MSBuild Properties="Configuration=Release;DeployOnBuild=True;" 
         StopOnFirstFailure="true" 
         Projects="$(BuildDirectory)\BigWave.ALL.sln"></MSBuild>