ASP.NET MVC 1.0 AfterBuilding Views fails on TFS Build

asp.net asp.net-mvc tfsbuild
o_o picture o_o · Apr 16, 2009 · Viewed 13.7k times · Source

I've upgraded from ASP.NET MVC Beta to 1.0 and did the following changes to the MVC project (as descibed in the RC release notes):

<Project ...>
  ...
  <MvcBuildViews>true</MvcBuildViews>
  ...
  <Target Name="AfterBuild" Condition="'$(MvcBuildViews)'=='true'">
    <AspNetCompiler VirtualPath="temp" PhysicalPath="$(ProjectDir)\..\$(ProjectName)" />
  </Target>
  ...
</Project>

While the build runs fine on our local dev boxes, it fails under TFS 2008 Build with "Could not load type 'xxx.MvcApplication'", see below build log:

...
using "AspNetCompiler" task from assembly "Microsoft.Build.Tasks.v3.5, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a".
Task "AspNetCompiler"

  Command:
  C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_compiler.exe -v temp -p D:\Builds\xxx\Continuous\TeamBuild\Sources\UI\xxx.UI.Dashboard\\..\xxx.UI.Dashboard 
  The "AspNetCompiler" task is using "aspnet_compiler.exe" from "C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_compiler.exe".
  Utility to precompile an ASP.NET application
  Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

/temp/global.asax(1): error ASPPARSE: Could not load type 'xxx.UI.Dashboard.MvcApplication'.
  The command exited with code 1.

Done executing task "AspNetCompiler" -- FAILED.
...

MVC 1.0 is installed on TFS and the solution compiles when built within a Visual Studio instance on the same TFS server.

How can I resolve this TFS Build issue?

Answer

Jim Lamb picture Jim Lamb · Apr 19, 2010

Actually, there's a better solution to this problem. I've tested it with VS/TFS 2010 but it should also work with VS/TFS 2008.

<Target Name="AfterBuild" Condition="'$(MvcBuildViews)'=='true'">
  <AspNetCompiler VirtualPath="temp" PhysicalPath="$(WebProjectOutputDir)" />
</Target>

I'm going to work with the MVC team to update their project template to to use this approach along with a custom target (rather than overriding AfterBuild).

I've published a blog post on How to Turn on Compile-time View Checking for ASP.NET MVC projects in TFS Build 2010.

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