dotnet publish include extra files

Question

I have a netcore application depends on my custom project. Because I cannot reference it directly, I have written postbuildevents that are copying my files to output:

xcopy "$(SolutionDir)Ethereum.Contracts\bin\$(ConfigurationName)\*.abi" "$(TargetDir)" /Y /I
xcopy "$(SolutionDir)Ethereum.Contracts\bin\$(ConfigurationName)\*.bin" "$(TargetDir)" /Y /I

It works fine when I build and run project, but when run publish command it doesn't include these files.

How can it be done? I tried this approach as well but AddPayloadsFolder doesn't get called.

My csproj:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.0</TargetFramework>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <ProjectReference Include="..\..\Dependencies\Dependencies.csproj" />
  </ItemGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <None Update="appsettings.json">
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </None>
    <None Update="log4net.config">
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </None>
  </ItemGroup>

  <Target Name="PostBuild" AfterTargets="PostBuildEvent">
    <Exec Command="xcopy &quot;$(SolutionDir)Ethereum.Contracts\bin\$(ConfigurationName)\*.abi&quot; &quot;$(TargetDir)&quot; /Y /I&#xA;&#xA;&#xD;&#xA;xcopy &quot;$(SolutionDir)Ethereum.Contracts\bin\$(ConfigurationName)\*.bin&quot; &quot;$(TargetDir)&quot; /Y /I" />
  </Target>

  <Target Name="AddPayloadsFolder" AfterTargets="AfterPublish">
    <Exec Command="xcopy &quot;$(TargetDir)\*.abi&quot; &quot;$(PublishDir)&quot; /Y /I&#xA;&#xA;&#xD;&#xA;xcopy &quot;$(TargetDir)\*.bin&quot; &quot;$(PublishDir)&quot; /Y /I" />
  </Target>

</Project>

CodeFuller · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-30T14:52:30.793

When you launch dotnet publish command, $(SolutionDir) macros is not defined. As result xcopy is launched with incorrect source path.

The issue with missing solution macros is described here and it's still in opened state. I'm not sure it will be ever fixed because $(SolutionDir) is IDE-specific macros.

To fix your problem, you could pass the value for $(SolutionDir) macros to dotnet publish command via switch /p:

dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 /p:SolutionDir="D:\projects\SolutionDir"

You should also add a backslash after $(SolutionDir) macros:

<Target Name="PostBuild" AfterTargets="PostBuildEvent">
    <Exec Command="xcopy &quot;$(SolutionDir)\Ethereum.Contracts\bin\$(ConfigurationName)\*.abi&quot; &quot;$(TargetDir)&quot; /Y /I&#xA;&#xA;&#xD;&#xA;xcopy &quot;$(SolutionDir)\Ethereum.Contracts\bin\$(ConfigurationName)\*.bin&quot; &quot;$(TargetDir)&quot; /Y /I" />
</Target>

UPDATE (regarding AddPayloadsFolder target):

AddPayloadsFolder target defined as

<Target Name="AddPayloadsFolder" AfterTargets="AfterPublish">

is not executed since the correct value of AfterTargets for dotnet publish is Publish, not AfterPublish. I have not found explicit documentation for this fact, however it is mentioned in this issue.

Also consider replacing several xcopy commands delimited by newline separator with multiple commands. When I got AddPayloadsFolder target finally executed, I got an error caused by \r delimiter appended to the command line.

Summarizing all of the above, here are adjusted PostBuild and AddPayloadsFolder targets:

<Target Name="PostBuild" AfterTargets="PostBuildEvent">
    <Exec Command="xcopy &quot;$(SolutionDir)\Ethereum.Contracts\bin\$(ConfigurationName)\*.abi&quot; &quot;$(TargetDir)&quot; /Y /I" />
    <Exec Command="xcopy &quot;$(SolutionDir)\Ethereum.Contracts\bin\$(ConfigurationName)\*.bin&quot; &quot;$(TargetDir)&quot; /Y /I" />
</Target>

<Target Name="AddPayloadsFolder" AfterTargets="Publish">
    <Exec Command="xcopy &quot;$(TargetDir)*.abi&quot; &quot;$(PublishDir)&quot; /Y /I" />
    <Exec Command="xcopy &quot;$(TargetDir)*.bin&quot; &quot;$(PublishDir)&quot; /Y /I" />
</Target>

Well, I get this file copied into `bin\Debug\netcoreapp2.0` folder (as it was with Visual Studio publish option). However, `\bin\Debug\netcoreapp2.0\publish` still not containing these files. This was purpose of `AddPayloadsFolder` task. You can try yourself add any text file which is not part of project. E.g. try to copy `csproj` file itself in output directory. You can easily copy it into `bin/debug` folder but it doesn't go into `publish` one. — Alex Zhukovskiy, Mar 30 '18 at 13:57
Thank you, it works as expected. I didn't separate it into more readable `Exec`'s because it's how it's generated in Visual Studio, otherwise only first command gets shown in VS project properties. — Alex Zhukovskiy, Mar 30 '18 at 15:22
Thx, works. But I prefer it like this: https://gist.github.com/jakubsuchybio/7efe6aa1147f088072459a39837f2ecd — Jacob, Sep 14 '18 at 18:23

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered May 27 '21 at 09:23

Based no the gist that @Jacob suggested, I have written down the recommended method to do this in SDK-style csproj files.

You first need to setup an item group that specifies the files that you want to copy. Then you can use a target to perform the actual copy step. This is an example taken from the VS website (link):

<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
 <ItemGroup>
  <MySourceFiles Include="a.cs;b.cs;c.cs"/>
 </ItemGroup>
 <Target Name="CopyFiles">
  <Copy SourceFiles="@(MySourceFiles)" DestinationFolder="c:\MyProject\Destination" />
 </Target>
</Project>

You also need to specify when the target needs to be invoked (unless you want to invoke it explicitly). For a normal build you would typically invoked it after the build (AfterBuild). When publishing the project, select the Publish target. If it needs to be done both times, then invoke it twice:

<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
 <ItemGroup>
  <MySourceFiles Include="a.cs;b.cs;c.cs"/>
 </ItemGroup>
 <Target Name="CopyExtraFiles" AfterTargets="AfterBuild">
  <Copy SourceFiles="@(MySourceFiles)" DestinationFolder="c:\MyProject\Destination" />
 </Target>
 <Target Name="PublishExtraFiles" AfterTargets="Publish">
  <Copy SourceFiles="@(MySourceFiles)" DestinationFolder="c:\MyProject\Destination" />
 </Target>
</Project>

See for more information the documentation about the Copy task. You may need this when you want to copy a folder when you need to copy a complete directory structure:

<Copy SourceFiles="@(MySourceFiles)"
      DestinationFiles="@(MySourceFiles->'c:\MyDestinationTree\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)')" />

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 12 '21 at 21:08

A comment on SolutionDir being unavailable - not as an answer to the question per se but as something to consider.

If you create a file in your solution directory called "Directory.Build.props", with the following content, then it defines the SolutionDir variable for you:

<Project>
 <PropertyGroup>
    <SolutionDir>$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)</SolutionDir>
 </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

dotnet publish include extra files

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