Question

When I do a ReadLinesFromFile on a file in MSBUILD and go to output that file again, I get all the text on one line. All the Carriage returns and LineFeeds are stripped out.

<Project DefaultTargets = 'Deploy' xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003' > <Import  Project='$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\MSBuildCommunityTasks\MSBuild.Community.Tasks.Targets'/>  <ItemGroup>     <MyTextFile Include='$(ReleaseNotesDir)$(NewBuildNumber).txt'/> </ItemGroup>  <Target Name='ReadReleaseNotes'>     <ReadLinesFromFile         File='@(MyTextFile)' >         <Output             TaskParameter='Lines'             ItemName='ReleaseNoteItems'/>     </ReadLinesFromFile> </Target>  <Target Name='MailUsers' DependsOnTargets='ReadReleaseNotes' >     <Mail SmtpServer='$(MailServer)'         To='$(MyEMail)'         From='$(MyEMail)'         Subject='Test Mail Task'         Body='@(ReleaseNoteItems)' /> </Target> <Target Name='Deploy'>     <CallTarget Targets='MailUsers' /> </Target>  </Project> 

I get the text from the file which normally looks like this

- New Deployment Tool for BLAH  - Random other stuff()'' 

Coming out like this

- New Deployment Tool for BLAH;- Random other stuff()'' 

I know that the code for ReadLinesFromFile will pull the data in one line at a time and strip out the carriage returns.

Is there a way to put them back in? So my e-mail looks all nicely formatted?

Thanks

Answer 1

The problem here is you are using the ReadLinesFromFile task in a manner it wasn’t intended.

ReadLinesFromFile Task
Reads a list of items from a text file.

So it’s not just reading all the text from a file, it’s reading individual items from a file and returning an item group of ITaskItems. Whenever you output a list of items using the @() syntax you will get a separated list, the default of which is a semicolon. This example illustrates this behavior:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?> <Project DefaultTargets='Build'    xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003' ToolsVersion='3.5'>      <ItemGroup>         <Color Include='Red' />         <Color Include='Blue' />         <Color Include='Green' /> </ItemGroup>  <Target Name='Build'>         <Message Text='ItemGroup Color: @(Color)' /> </Target>  </Project> 

And the output looks like this:

  ItemGroup Color: Red;Blue;Green 

So while the best solution to your problem is to write an MSBuild task that reads a file into a property as a string an not a list of items, that’s really not what you asked for. You asked if there was a way to put them back, and there is using MSBuild Transforms.

Transforms are used to create one list from another and also have the ability to transform using a custom separator. So the answer is to transform your list read in using ReadItemsFromFile into another list with newlines. Here is an example that does just that:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?> <Project DefaultTargets='Build' xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003' ToolsVersion='3.5'>      <ItemGroup>         <File Include='$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\Test.txt' />     </ItemGroup>      <Target Name='Build'>         <ReadLinesFromFile File='@(File)'>             <Output TaskParameter='Lines' ItemName='FileContents' />         </ReadLinesFromFile>          <Message Text='FileContents: @(FileContents)' />         <Message Text='FileContents Transformed: @(FileContents->'%(Identity)', '%0a%0d')' />     </Target>  </Project> 

Test.text looks like:

Red Green Blue 

And the output looks like this:

[C:\temp]:: msbuild test.proj Microsoft (R) Build Engine Version 3.5.21022.8 [Microsoft .NET Framework, Version 2.0.50727.1433] Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 2007. All rights reserved.  Build started 11/8/2008 8:16:59 AM. Project 'C:\temp\test.proj' on node 0 (default targets).   FileContents: Red;Green;Blue   FileContents Transformed: Red Green Blue Done Building Project 'C:\temp\test.proj' (default targets).   Build succeeded.     0 Warning(s)     0 Error(s)  Time Elapsed 00:00:00.03 

What’s going on here is two things.

@(FileContents->'%(Identity)', '%0a%0d')    

• We are transforming the list from one type to another using the same values (Identity) but a custom separator '%0a%0d'
• We are using MSBuild Escaping to escape the line feed (%0a) and carriage return (%0d)