Overview

• The Microsoft Build Engine is a platform for building applications.
• This engine, which is also known as MSBuild, provides an XML schema for a project file that controls how the build platform processes and builds software.
• By invoking msbuild.exe on your project or solution file, you can orchestrate and build products in environments where Visual Studio isn't installed.
• Visual Studio uses MSBuild to load and build managed projects.

Use MSBuild From Command-Line

• Command-line options let you set properties, execute specific targets, and set other options that control the build process.

MSBuild.exe MyProj.proj -property:Configuration=Debug

Project file

• The MSBuild project file format lets developers describe the items that are to be built, and also how they are to be built for different operating systems and configurations.
• In addition, the project file format lets developers author reusable build rules that can be factored into separate files so that builds can be performed consistently across different projects in the product.
• The following sections describe some of the basic elements of the MSBuild project file format.

Properties

• Properties represent key/value pairs that can be used to configure builds.
• Properties are declared by creating an element that has the name of the property as a child of a PropertyGroup element.

<PropertyGroup>
    <BuildDir>Build</BuildDir>
</PropertyGroup>

• You can define a property conditionally by placing a Condition attribute in the element.
• The contents of conditional elements are ignored unless the condition evaluates to true.
• In the following example, the Configuration element is defined if it hasn't yet been defined.

<Configuration  Condition="'$(Configuration)' == ''">Debug</Configuration>