Continuous Integration - Build Scripts

Now let’s look at certain aspects of the MSBuild file to see what they mean. These aspects are important to know from a Continuous Integration Cycle.

Build scripts are used to build the solution which will be a part of the entire continuous Integration cycle. Let’s look at the general build script which is created as a part of Visual Studio in .Net for our sample solution. The build script is a pretty big one, even for a simple solution, so we will go through the most important parts of it. By default, the build script will be stored in a file with the same name as the main solution in Visual Studio. So in our case, if you open the file Simple.csproj, you will see all the settings which will be used to build the solution.

  • Dependency on the MSBuild version used − The following settings will use the MSBuild files installed on the CI server.

<VisualStudioVersion Condition = "'$(VisualStudioVersion)' == 
   ''">10.0</VisualStudioVersion>

<VSToolsPath Condition = "'$(VSToolsPath)' == ''"> 
   $(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)
</VSToolsPath>

<TargetFrameworkVersion>v4.5</TargetFrameworkVersion>

<Import Project = "$(MSBuildBinPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />
<Import Project = "$(VSToolsPath)\WebApplications\
   Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" Condition = "'$(VSToolsPath)' ! = ''" />

<Import Project = "$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\
   WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" Condition = "false" />

  • What files are required to build the solution properly – The ItemGroup tag will contain all the necessary .Net files which are required for the project to build successfully. These files will need to reside on the build server accordingly.

<ItemGroup>
   <Reference Include = "Microsoft.CSharp" />
   <Reference Include = "System.Web.DynamicData" />
   <Reference Include = "System.Web.Entity" />
   <Reference Include = "System.Web.ApplicationServices" />
   <Reference Include = "System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations" />
   <Reference Include = "System" />
   <Reference Include = "System.Data" />
   <Reference Include = "System.Core" />
   <Reference Include = "System.Data.DataSetExtensions" />
   <Reference Include = "System.Web.Extensions" />
   <Reference Include = "System.Xml.Linq" />
   <Reference Include = "System.Drawing" />
   <Reference Include = "System.Web" />
   <Reference Include = "System.Xml" />
   <Reference Include = "System.Configuration" />
   <Reference Include = "System.Web.Services" />
   <Reference Include = "System.EnterpriseServices"/>
</ItemGroup>

  • What are the Web server settings to be used − When we visit our topic of Continuous Deployment, you will see how MSBuild will be used to override these settings and deploy this to our server of choice.

<UseIIS>True</UseIIS>
<AutoAssignPort>True</AutoAssignPort>
<DevelopmentServerPort>59495</DevelopmentServerPort>
<DevelopmentServerVPath>/</DevelopmentServerVPath>
<IISUrl></IISUrl>
<NTLMAuthentication>False</NTLMAuthentication>
<UseCustomServer>False</UseCustomServer>
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