Build scripts for C# project - written in C#?

Question

We've got a quite complex deployment scenario and want to make use of continuous deployment. Currently we've got a huge MSBuild script for everything, however, MSBuild is ok for building but not really suitable for deploying.

We'd love it if there would be some kind of C# project where we could write the deploy code directly with C#. Is there some C# scripting language which is suitable especially for deploying applications?

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 29 '13 at 18:04

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While it's not a C# project, you can use my company's product BuildMaster to handle deployments. It's designed to solve some of the problems you're already having, and some you probably don't realize you have (configuration file deployments, database schema updates, process automation, approvals, etc.)

However, if all you want is to write C# scripts for deployment, there's a tool called con-dep which looks like what you're describing.

answered Jul 29 '13 at 18:04

Karl Harnagy

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Thank you. While BuildMaster is too high-level for us, con-dep really looks like we should give it a chance. +1! – D.R. Jul 29 '13 at 20:24

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 29 '13 at 13:01

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Well, with Roslyn now I suppose that you can technically now use C# as a scripting language. I don't know if it would be terrible appropriate to do so...

answered Jul 29 '13 at 13:01

Andrew Coonce

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 29 '13 at 13:04

Depending on your deployment solutions you might want to look into the NAntBuilder IDE. We used this for continuous ddeployment together with SVN server. If you have TFS why don't you just look into the details and many possibilities of Build Process templates?

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

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You can use the .NET integrated C# compiler.

The advantage is that you can use the same DLLs/APIs in a C# 'script' as you do in your own software.

I use it in our production software. Our production engineers are able to write some small programs for special stuff.

See this answer for details.

edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

Community

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answered Jul 29 '13 at 13:23

joe

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 29 '13 at 13:38

You may want to look into using a tool that's specifically designed for handling deployments. If you're using Team Foundation Server, Team Build + InRelease provides a well-supported, well-documented way to handle your builds and deployments. Now that Microsoft owns InRelease, it'll be part of Team Foundation Server pretty soon.

If not, you can always write PowerShell scripts to handle your deployments. PowerShell isn't C#, but it's built on top of the .NET framework (so all the framework methods you're familiar with are still available), and the learning curve isn't very steep.

Build scripts for C# project - written in C#?

5 Answers5