How do I pass a property value containing a semicolon on the MSBuild command line when running it from PowerShell?

Question

I'm attempting to pass a property to MSBuild. The property is a semicolon-delimited list of values. Unlike this question, I'm running MSBuild from PowerShell.

I get:

PS> msbuild .\Foo.sln /p:PackageSources="\\server\NuGet;E:\NuGet"

MSBUILD : error MSB1006: Property is not valid.
Switch: E:\NuGet

If I run the same command from Command Prompt, it works fine. How do I get it to work in PowerShell?

Try using the backtick escape character ("`") in front of the semicolon. Possibly other characters in that string, as well. — David, Aug 16 '12 at 16:58
Backtick doesn't work -- the problem is that MSBuild expects /p:PropA=ValA;PropB=ValB. The semicolon needs 'escaping' from MSBuild, not from PowerShell. Adding the quotes should fix this, but PoSh pulls them out when passing the command line on. — Roger Lipscombe, Aug 17 '12 at 08:27

score 23 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 17 '12 at 07:11

23

Wrap the parameter in single quotes:

... '/p:PackageSources="\\Server\NuGet;E:\NuGet"'

On PowerShell v3 try this:

msbuild .\Foo.sln --% /p:PackageSources="\\Server\NuGet;E:\NuGet"

answered Aug 17 '12 at 07:11

Keith Hill

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Can't check v3 (I uninstalled it when it broke my PowerShell console settings -- font, colours, size), but the extra single quotes work. – Roger Lipscombe Aug 17 '12 at 08:28

score 6 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 07 '23 at 21:14

6

Also using ASCIII value helps:

msbuild .\Foo.sln /p:PackageSources="\\Server\NuGet%3BE:\NuGet"

edited Feb 07 '23 at 21:14

Martin Prikryl

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answered May 30 '17 at 10:39

Hi, you are answering a pretty old question. Can you elaborate why your answer is better than the ones that were already provided? – Noel Widmer May 30 '17 at 11:03
3

Sure. In this case, you do not need to change the script, that's only difference. That was actually my problem - I was using distribution plugin that triggered the build. And since I was not allowed to touch the plugin's code, this solved it more suitably. – May 31 '17 at 09:05
Cool! Next time I would add that text directly to your post (edit) where it can be easly found for a future reader. You can still do that (I'd recommend it). – Noel Widmer May 31 '17 at 09:08
In case anyone got here the same way I did... I had the same error for dotnet build -p:TreatWarningsAsErrors=true -p:NoWarn="CS0618;CS1705" however %3B (semicolon) did not work but %2C (comma) did. – neoscribe Jun 01 '23 at 22:26

score -2 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 03 '16 at 21:35

VBScript function below can be used to escape property values passed to MSBuild.exe inside double quotes:

    Function Escape(s)
      Escape = s

      Set objRegEx = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp") 

      objRegEx.Global = True 
      objRegEx.Pattern = "(\\+)?"""

      Escape = objRegEx.Replace(Escape,"$1$1\""") 

      objRegEx.Pattern = "(\\+)$"

      Escape = objRegEx.Replace(Escape,"$1$1") 
    End Function

The following example demonstrates usage of Escape() function

    Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")        
    objShell.Run "msbuild.exe echo.targets /p:Param1=""" & Escape("ParamValue1") & """,Param2=""" & Escape("ParamValue1") & """", 1, True

You should ask (and self-answer) a question where this answer can live. It's got nothing to do with PowerShell. — Roger Lipscombe, Oct 04 '16 at 08:14

How do I pass a property value containing a semicolon on the MSBuild command line when running it from PowerShell?

3 Answers3

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