MsBuild copy file after build

.net visual-studio-2010 build msbuild csproj
KlimczakM picture KlimczakM · Sep 12, 2012 · Viewed 40.4k times · Source

I want to copy an xml file from the main directory to bin\Debug after building the project, but my solution doesn't work. I edited .csproj file and added:

<Target Name="AfterBuild">
     <Copy SourceFiles="Controllers.xml" DestinationFolder="\bin\Debug" ContinueOnError="true" />
</Target>

What am I doing wrong? The build is successful.

Answer

Christian.K picture Christian.K · Sep 12, 2012

Your destination folder is (most likely) wrong. If you specify it with a leading backslash, it is actually just a shortform for <current-drive-letter>\bin\Debug (making it effectively an absolute path, like C:\bin\Debug).

Either use bin\Debug, or better yet use the OutputPath variable, which is set to either bin\Debug or bin\Release depending on your build configuration.

Example:

<Target Name="AfterBuild">
     <Copy SourceFiles="Controllers.xml" DestinationFolder="$(OutputPath)" ContinueOnError="true" />
</Target>

Related questions

Can't change target platform to "any CPU"

I work on an x86 pc and use .NET4.0 (same probelem with 3.5) in VS2010. When I make a new Project (e.g. WinFormsApp), the first thing I want to do is to change the target platform of the project/solution …

Read More
How to force VS 2010 to skip "builds" of projects which haven't changed?

Our product's solution has more than 100+ projects (500+ksloc of production code). Most of them are C# projects but we also have few using C++/CLI to bridge communication with native code. Rebuilding the whole solution takes several minutes. That's fine. …

Read More
Type or namespace name does not exist

I have a WCF Data Service project built with Visual Studio 2010, which was working fine. All of a sudden, it didn't compile anymore. It was giving me messages like: Error 7 The type or namespace name 'Services' does not exist in …

Read More