Reply to comment

Tim Cartwright

# 22 April 2016 Reply

I found your article quite interesting, and decided to take it a step further by adding a build for each framework version with a single compile as an alternative to batching MSBuild. I wanted to do this so I could include these various builds into a nuget package. Here is how I did it:

In your default property group:

    <!--defaults, in case they add a build that does not match -->
    <AssemblyName>MultiBuild</AssemblyName>
    <TargetFrameworkVersion>v4.0</TargetFrameworkVersion>
    <!--4.0 build-->
    <AssemblyName Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == 'Debug' OR '$(Configuration)' == 'Release' ">MultiBuild.v40</AssemblyName>
    <TargetFrameworkVersion Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == 'Debug' OR '$(Configuration)' == 'Release' ">v4.0</TargetFrameworkVersion>
    <!--4.5 build-->
    <AssemblyName Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == 'Debug 4.51' OR '$(Configuration)' == 'Release 4.51' ">MultiBuild.v451</AssemblyName>
    <TargetFrameworkVersion Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == 'Debug 4.51' OR '$(Configuration)' == 'Release 4.51' ">v4.5.1</TargetFrameworkVersion>

Then either add a new AfterBuild event, or add the MSBuild elements to your existing AfterBuild:

Btw, don’t do this:

            <Target Name="AfterBuild">
                            <MSBuild Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' " Projects="$(MSBuildProjectFile)" Properties="Configuration=Debug 4.51;PlatForm=AnyCPU" RunEachTargetSeparately="true" />
                            <MSBuild Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug 4.51|AnyCPU' " Projects="$(MSBuildProjectFile)" Properties="Configuration=Debug;PlatForm=AnyCPU" RunEachTargetSeparately="true" />
            </Target> 

In this case when you build either one, it would build the other. Then build the other one, then build the other… rinse,, repeat and you’ve created a build circular reference. With this technique I suggest all other builds triggering off the base Debug and Release build.

Richard Moss

# 24 April 2016 Reply

Tim,

Thanks for the comment, that looks interesting. In the end I abandoned this approach after getting really annoyed with Visual Studio having multiple warnings about different references, although it became a moot point as I turned the library into a multi target nuget package after I decided to convert a great many of our libraries into private packages. I'm still a bit old school and really like my batch files too ;)

Thanks again for the comment!

Regards;
Richard Moss