When implementing a microsoft.build.utilities.task how to i get access to the various environmental variables of the build?
For example "TargetPath"
I know i can pass it in as part of the task XML
<MyTask TargetPath="$(TargetPath)" />
But i don't want to force the consumer of the task to have to do that if I can access the variable in code.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.build.utilities.task.aspx
I worked out how to do this
public static class BuildEngineExtensions
{
const BindingFlags bindingFlags = BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.FlattenHierarchy | BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public;
public static IEnumerable GetEnvironmentVariable(this IBuildEngine buildEngine, string key,bool throwIfNotFound)
{
var projectInstance = GetProjectInstance(buildEngine);
var items = projectInstance.Items
.Where(x => string.Equals(x.ItemType, key, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase)).ToList();
if (items.Count > 0)
{
return items.Select(x => x.EvaluatedInclude);
}
var properties = projectInstance.Properties
.Where(x => string.Equals(x.Name, key, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase)).ToList();
if (properties.Count > 0)
{
return properties.Select(x => x.EvaluatedValue);
}
if (throwIfNotFound)
{
throw new Exception(string.Format("Could not extract from '{0}' environmental variables.", key));
}
return Enumerable.Empty();
}
static ProjectInstance GetProjectInstance(IBuildEngine buildEngine)
{
var buildEngineType = buildEngine.GetType();
var targetBuilderCallbackField = buildEngineType.GetField("targetBuilderCallback", bindingFlags);
if (targetBuilderCallbackField == null)
{
throw new Exception("Could not extract targetBuilderCallback from " + buildEngineType.FullName);
}
var targetBuilderCallback = targetBuilderCallbackField.GetValue(buildEngine);
var targetCallbackType = targetBuilderCallback.GetType();
var projectInstanceField = targetCallbackType.GetField("projectInstance", bindingFlags);
if (projectInstanceField == null)
{
throw new Exception("Could not extract projectInstance from " + targetCallbackType.FullName);
}
return (ProjectInstance)projectInstanceField.GetValue(targetBuilderCallback);
}
}
And it can be used like this
string targetPath = buildEngine.GetEnvironmentVariable("TargetPath", true).First();
string intermediateAssembly = buildEngine.GetEnvironmentVariable("IntermediateAssembly", true).First();
IEnumerable<string> referencePaths = buildEngine.GetEnvironmentVariable("ReferencePath", true);
Yes it is ugly and black magic but it works.