As your projects grow more complicated, you'll need a build system to keep track of build results—and MSBuild is up to the task.
by Tapas Pal
October 6, 2008
he Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild) is the new build platform for Microsoft and Visual Studio. MSBuild is completely transparent with regards to how it processes and builds software, enabling developers to orchestrate and build products in build lab environments where Visual Studio is not installed. This article provides brief overviews of:
The basic elements of an MSBuild project file.
How MSBuild is used to build projects.
The advanced features of MSBuild.
How Visual Studio uses MSBuild to build projects.
Walkthrough Sample application / Logger.
Basic MSBuild Project Elements
MSBuild introduces a new XML-based project file format that is simple to understand, easy to extend, and fully supported (see Figure 1). The MSBuild project file format lets developers describe what items need to be built as well as how they need to be built with different platforms and configurations. In addition, developers can author reusable build rules that can be factored into separate files, which can help make builds perform consistently across different projects.
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he Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild) is the new build platform for Microsoft and Visual Studio. MSBuild is completely transparent with regards to how it processes and builds software, enabling developers to orchestrate and build products in build lab environments where Visual Studio is not installed. This article provides brief overviews of:
