Publish and Transform in MSBuild script

VS 2010 web.config transformations are great.
Change your development web.config which looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
 
<configuration>
  <connectionStrings>
    <add name="ApplicationServices"
         connectionString="data source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Integrated Security=SSPI;AttachDBFilename=|DataDirectory|aspnetdb.mdf;User Instance=true"
         providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
  </connectionStrings>
 
  <system.web>
    <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0">

by adding a Web.DeployTest.config file which looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
 
  <connectionStrings>
    <add name="ApplicationServices" connectionString="Data Source=StaticVoidSqlServer;Initial Catalog=Northwind;Integrated Security=SSPI;" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"
         xdt:Transform="SetAttributes" xdt:Locator="Match(name)"/>
  </connectionStrings>
 
</configuration>

Only by default it's tied up with the build configurations (Debug, Release etc) and the Web deploy story.
But I don't want a web deployment package. I want:

a normal "Release" configuration build
a directory containing all the website files that I can XCopy deploy (like old school Visual Studio 2008 publish)
the web.config transformed with my custom "DeployTest" name.

Doing it this way means the web.DeployTest.config is not automatically nested under the web.config (and I should mark it as BuildAction=None).
But that's my requirements. So I wrote an MSBuild file.

Batch file (build.bat)

First here's a standard batch file, "build.bat", to launch it (I want MSBuild 4.0):

%systemroot%\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe build.proj  /t:Release & pause

MSBuild script (build.proj)



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" DefaultTargets="Release">
 
  <UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
 
  <PropertyGroup>
    <!-- properties that are used in this build file - referenced as $(PropertyName) -->
    <ProjectName>StaticVoid</ProjectName>
    <DeployConfiguration>DeployTest</DeployConfiguration>
 
    <PublishPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\Publish\</PublishPath>
    <OutputPath>$(PublishPath)\StaticVoid\</OutputPath>
    <PackagePath>$(PublishPath)\StaticVoidPackage\</PackagePath>
 
    <TransformInputFile>..\StaticVoid\Web.config</TransformInputFile>
    <TransformFile>..\StaticVoid\Web.$(DeployConfiguration).config</TransformFile>
    <TransformOutputFile>$(OutputPath)\Web.config</TransformOutputFile>
 
    <ImageResourcesPath>..\ImageResources</ImageResourcesPath>
 
  </PropertyGroup>
 
  <ItemGroup>
    <ImageResources Include="$(ImageResourcesPath)\*.jpg" />
  </ItemGroup>
 
 
  <!-- targets -->
 
  <Target Name="PublishWebsite">
    <Message Text="Publishing Website" />
    <RemoveDir Directories="$(PublishPath)"/>
    <!-- do a deploy -->
    <MSBuild Projects="..\StaticVoid\StaticVoid.csproj"
		Properties="Configuration=Release;OutputPath=$(PackagePath);DeployOnBuild=true;DeployTarget=PipelinePreDeployCopyAllFilesToOneFolder;AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false;_PackageTempDir=$(OutputPath)"/>
  </Target>
 
  <Target Name="Transform">
    <!-- transform the web.config -->
    <TransformXml Source="$(TransformInputFile)"
                  Transform="$(TransformFile)"
                  Destination="$(TransformOutputFile)" />
  </Target>
 
  <Target Name="BuildWebsite" DependsOnTargets="PublishWebsite">
    <!-- we don't need the deployment package, we wanted the published files to copy manually -->
    <RemoveDir Directories="$(PackagePath)"/>
    <!-- copy the unmanaged resources -->
    <Copy SourceFiles="@(ImageResources)" DestinationFolder="$(PublishPath)images" SkipUnchangedFiles="true" />
  </Target>
  
  <Target Name="Release" DependsOnTargets="BuildWebsite; Transform;">
  </Target>
 
</Project>

A little explanation

The MSBuild task for the website project (StaticVoid.csproj) has a whole set of extra properties set which make it do a deploy.

(Broken here to be easier to read:)

    <MSBuild Projects="..\StaticVoid\StaticVoid.csproj"
		Properties="Configuration=Release;

OutputPath=$(PackagePath);

DeployOnBuild=true;

DeployTarget=PipelinePreDeployCopyAllFilesToOneFolder;

AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false;

_PackageTempDir=$(OutputPath)"/>

The regular deployment package is written to $(PackagePath). I don't care about that, so I delete it.
The actual directory and files that I wanted are written to $(OutputPath) using the _PackageTempDir property.

For the transform, note the msbuild xml must have Project ToolsVersion="4.0" and

<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" 

AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />


And then the transformation:

    <TransformXml Source="$(TransformInputFile)"
                  Transform="$(TransformFile)"
                  Destination="$(TransformOutputFile)" />

with $(TransformFile) defined as

<TransformFile>..\StaticVoid\Web.$(DeployConfiguration).config</TransformFile>

Simply changing the DeployConfiguration property lets me have test and production builds which transform things nicely.

Update: the old _CopyWebApplication still works too

In Visual Studio 2008 you could use this task:

    <MSBuild Projects="..\StaticVoid\StaticVoid.csproj"
             Targets="ResolveReferences;_CopyWebApplication"
             Properties="Configuration=Release;
                         WebProjectOutputDir=$(OutputPath);
                         OutDir=$(OutputPath)\bin\" />

This still works in Visual Studio 2010's MSBuild (and you don't have a package directory to delete).
The transforms can still be done manually.

static void