I am using a T4 template to (among other things) increment build numbers in the AssemblyInfo.cs file.
As I only want the transformation to occur when I run a Release build, I have previously done this by having the build action on the T4 file as being "None" and having a kludge of a pre-build command on the project of:
if $(Configuration) == Release "%CommonProgramFiles(x86)%\microsoft shared\TextTemplating\12.0\TextTransform.exe" -a !!build!true "$(ProjectDir)Transforms\AssemblyInfo.tt"
I am now moving to VS2017 and I want to know if there are any better ways of doing this. Answers to questions like Get Visual Studio to run a T4 Template on every build basically offer:
- A souped up version of what I am already doing (but with batch files)
- Point to lots of VS extensions that try to run the T4 stuff on every build.
- Propose manually modifying the project file (which I don't want to do as it makes the process invisible when using the IDE)
in 2017 is there a better approach in VS2017 to what I want to do? Something allows me to run my T4 on a release build only, that integrates into the solution from the IDE and doesn't rely on batch files?
Another question Determine solution configuration (debug/release) when running a T4 template shows how to get the build type from within the T4 template, but by then it's too late for me.
