C#•3mo ago

MSBuild: Excluding objects if %(Filename) matches any in ItemGroup

Given a target:

<Target Name="ExplicitRemoveFromFilesToBundle" BeforeTargets="GenerateSingleFileBundle" DependsOnTargets="PrepareForBundle">
    <ItemGroup>
        <FilesToRemoveFromBundle Include="@(FilesToBundle)" Condition="$([System.String]::new('%(Filename)').Contains('TerraFX.Interop.Windows')) AND ('%(Extension)' == '.dll')" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <ItemGroup>
        <FilesToBundle Remove="@(FilesToRemoveFromBundle)" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Target>

<Target Name="ExplicitRemoveFromFilesToBundle" BeforeTargets="GenerateSingleFileBundle" DependsOnTargets="PrepareForBundle">
    <ItemGroup>
        <FilesToRemoveFromBundle Include="@(FilesToBundle)" Condition="$([System.String]::new('%(Filename)').Contains('TerraFX.Interop.Windows')) AND ('%(Extension)' == '.dll')" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <ItemGroup>
        <FilesToBundle Remove="@(FilesToRemoveFromBundle)" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Target>

<Target Name="ExplicitRemoveFromFilesToBundle" BeforeTargets="GenerateSingleFileBundle" DependsOnTargets="PrepareForBundle">
    <ItemGroup>
        <FilesToRemoveFromBundle Include="@(FilesToBundle)" Condition="$([System.String]::new('%(Filename)').Contains('TerraFX.Interop.Windows')) AND ('%(Extension)' == '.dll')" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <ItemGroup>
        <FilesToBundle Remove="@(FilesToRemoveFromBundle)" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Target>

<Target Name="ExplicitRemoveFromFilesToBundle" BeforeTargets="GenerateSingleFileBundle" DependsOnTargets="PrepareForBundle">
    <ItemGroup>
        <FilesToRemoveFromBundle Include="@(FilesToBundle)" Condition="$([System.String]::new('%(Filename)').Contains('TerraFX.Interop.Windows')) AND ('%(Extension)' == '.dll')" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <ItemGroup>
        <FilesToBundle Remove="@(FilesToRemoveFromBundle)" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Target>

that receives

FilesAsBundle

FilesAsBundle

FilesAsBundle

FilesAsBundle as the following input (abridged for simplicity):

'C:\Users\f\.nuget\packages\terrafx.interop.windows\10.0.26100.2\lib\net9.0\TerraFX.Interop.Windows.dll;C:\Users\f\.nuget\packages\hexa.net.imgui\2.2.8.4\runtimes\win-x86\native\cimgui.dll;D:\fh\artifacts\obj\Fahrenheit.Tools.ModManager\Release\net9.0\win-x86\fhmodmgr.deps.json'

'C:\Users\f\.nuget\packages\terrafx.interop.windows\10.0.26100.2\lib\net9.0\TerraFX.Interop.Windows.dll;C:\Users\f\.nuget\packages\hexa.net.imgui\2.2.8.4\runtimes\win-x86\native\cimgui.dll;D:\fh\artifacts\obj\Fahrenheit.Tools.ModManager\Release\net9.0\win-x86\fhmodmgr.deps.json'

'C:\Users\f\.nuget\packages\terrafx.interop.windows\10.0.26100.2\lib\net9.0\TerraFX.Interop.Windows.dll;C:\Users\f\.nuget\packages\hexa.net.imgui\2.2.8.4\runtimes\win-x86\native\cimgui.dll;D:\fh\artifacts\obj\Fahrenheit.Tools.ModManager\Release\net9.0\win-x86\fhmodmgr.deps.json'

'C:\Users\f\.nuget\packages\terrafx.interop.windows\10.0.26100.2\lib\net9.0\TerraFX.Interop.Windows.dll;C:\Users\f\.nuget\packages\hexa.net.imgui\2.2.8.4\runtimes\win-x86\native\cimgui.dll;D:\fh\artifacts\obj\Fahrenheit.Tools.ModManager\Release\net9.0\win-x86\fhmodmgr.deps.json'

I can remove

TerraFX.Interop.Windows.dll

TerraFX.Interop.Windows.dll

TerraFX.Interop.Windows.dll

TerraFX.Interop.Windows.dll from the list. But I have a need to match any of several filenames. I naively define a

ItemGroup

ItemGroup

ItemGroup

ItemGroup of

DepsToExclude

DepsToExclude

DepsToExclude

DepsToExclude as such:

'TerraFX.Interop.Windows;Hexa.NET.DirectXTex;Hexa.NET.ImGui.Backends;Hexa.NET.ImGui;HexaGen.Runtime.COM;HexaGen.Runtime;ImGuiImpl;cimgui;DirectXTex'

'TerraFX.Interop.Windows;Hexa.NET.DirectXTex;Hexa.NET.ImGui.Backends;Hexa.NET.ImGui;HexaGen.Runtime.COM;HexaGen.Runtime;ImGuiImpl;cimgui;DirectXTex'

'TerraFX.Interop.Windows;Hexa.NET.DirectXTex;Hexa.NET.ImGui.Backends;Hexa.NET.ImGui;HexaGen.Runtime.COM;HexaGen.Runtime;ImGuiImpl;cimgui;DirectXTex'

'TerraFX.Interop.Windows;Hexa.NET.DirectXTex;Hexa.NET.ImGui.Backends;Hexa.NET.ImGui;HexaGen.Runtime.COM;HexaGen.Runtime;ImGuiImpl;cimgui;DirectXTex'

and then attempted to amend the comparison:

<ItemGroup>
    <FilesToRemoveFromBundle Include="@(FilesToBundle)" Condition="$([System.String]::Copy('%(Filename)').Contains('@(DepsToExclude)')) AND ('%(Extension)' == '.dll')" />
</ItemGroup>

<ItemGroup>
    <FilesToRemoveFromBundle Include="@(FilesToBundle)" Condition="$([System.String]::Copy('%(Filename)').Contains('@(DepsToExclude)')) AND ('%(Extension)' == '.dll')" />
</ItemGroup>

<ItemGroup>
    <FilesToRemoveFromBundle Include="@(FilesToBundle)" Condition="$([System.String]::Copy('%(Filename)').Contains('@(DepsToExclude)')) AND ('%(Extension)' == '.dll')" />
</ItemGroup>

<ItemGroup>
    <FilesToRemoveFromBundle Include="@(FilesToBundle)" Condition="$([System.String]::Copy('%(Filename)').Contains('@(DepsToExclude)')) AND ('%(Extension)' == '.dll')" />
</ItemGroup>

and also attempted to directly

Remove

Remove

Remove

Remove from

FilesToBundle

FilesToBundle

FilesToBundle

FilesToBundle as follows:

<ItemGroup>
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/TerraFX.Interop.Windows.dll" />
    <!-- others... -->
</ItemGroup>

<ItemGroup>
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/TerraFX.Interop.Windows.dll" />
    <!-- others... -->
</ItemGroup>

<ItemGroup>
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/TerraFX.Interop.Windows.dll" />
    <!-- others... -->
</ItemGroup>

<ItemGroup>
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/TerraFX.Interop.Windows.dll" />
    <!-- others... -->
</ItemGroup>

but neither approach was successful. I'm struggling to follow how and when MSBuild expands

to automatically cover all elements in a group. What would be the correct way to express this?

Original message was deleted

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:06 AM

That version looked as follows:

<Message Text="FilesToBundle '@(FilesToBundle)'" Importance="High" />
       
<ItemGroup>        
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/TerraFX.Interop.Windows.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/Hexa.NET.DirectXTex.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/Hexa.NET.ImGui.Backends.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/Hexa.NET.ImGui.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/HexaGen.Runtime.COM.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/HexaGen.Runtime.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/ImGuiImpl.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/cimgui.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/DirectXTex.dll" />
</ItemGroup>

<Message Text="FilesToBundle '@(FilesToBundle)'" Importance="High" />

<Message Text="FilesToBundle '@(FilesToBundle)'" Importance="High" />
       
<ItemGroup>        
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/TerraFX.Interop.Windows.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/Hexa.NET.DirectXTex.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/Hexa.NET.ImGui.Backends.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/Hexa.NET.ImGui.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/HexaGen.Runtime.COM.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/HexaGen.Runtime.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/ImGuiImpl.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/cimgui.dll" />
    <FilesToBundle Remove="**/*/DirectXTex.dll" />
</ItemGroup>

<Message Text="FilesToBundle '@(FilesToBundle)'" Importance="High" />

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:06 AM

FilesToBundle

FilesToBundle

contains all entries at the beginning, but the

Remove

Remove

s have no effect

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:17 AM

that is inconvenient, because rooting it (with a literal) means I have to presuppose where a user might have their NuGet package cache

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:18 AM

at some point I realized that I can refer to entries in an

ItemGroup

ItemGroup

of <DepsToExclude Include="TerraFX.Interop.Windows" /><DepsToExclude Include="TerraFX.Interop.Windows" /> with %(DepsToExclude.Include)%(DepsToExclude.Include), but that performs a comparison between entry N in

FilesToBundle

FilesToBundle

and

DepsToExclude

DepsToExclude

respectively

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:18 AM

when what I'd like is to compare it against all

DepsToExclude

DepsToExclude

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:19 AM

Oh there's just %(RootDir)%(RootDir) according to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/msbuild/msbuild-well-known-item-metadata?view=vs-2022

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:19 AM

if that helps me in any way, which I'm not certain it does

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:22 AM

that is unfortunately not the case even on my dev machine, and God only knows about someone else's

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:39 AM

surprisingly, that has no effect, I'm trying to step through why

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:41 AM

oh, Filename is without extension

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:41 AM

right

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:45 AM

Somehow removing just those four characters (\.dll\.dll) causes:

D:\fh\Directory.Build.targets(51,9): error MSB4036: The "FilesToBundle" task was not found.

D:\fh\Directory.Build.targets(51,9): error MSB4036: The "FilesToBundle" task was not found.

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:46 AM

I'm confused by what it even means by this

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:46 AM

Right

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:46 AM

Good thinking

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:47 AM

right. well, the regex works- once I expand it to cover every DLL in that list; I suppose that's a win

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:48 AM

it is a bit more unwieldy than I originally expected it to be, but I'll take whatever I can get at this point

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:48 AM

thank you very much

peppyOP•10/1/25, 8:58 AM

does the regex i.e. the conditioncondition have to be on a single line? out of curiosity

peppyOP•10/1/25, 9:08 AM

honestly, just splitting up the condition across lines and having the regex be a single line all its own was enough

peppyOP•10/1/25, 9:08 AM

thanks, this was a lifesaving assist

peppyOP•10/1/25, 9:08 AM

in the course of trying one relatively simple thing I ended up learning a ton about MSBuild and .NET packaging

MSBuild: Excluding objects if %(Filename) matches any in ItemGroup

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