[SOLVED] msbuild properties initialized from functions cannot be converted to items?

msbuild properties initialized from functions cannot be converted to items?

I am trying to create an msbuild project where dependency information is read from a text file. I have a text file named project.dep which contains a semicolon separated list of project names. In this example the file contains a;b;c;d

I expected the code below to generate two identical item lists:

<PropertyGroup>
    <from_file>$([System.IO.File]::ReadAllText($(ProjectName).dep))</from_file>
    <inline>a;b;c;d</inline>
</PropertyGroup>

<ItemGroup>
    <from_file_items Include="$(from_file)" />
    <inline_items Include="$(inline)" />
</ItemGroup>

<Target Name="Test">
    <Message Text="file: @(from_file_items->'%(filename).item')" />
    <Message Text="inline: @(inline_items->'%(filename).item')" />
</Target>

But the result is different:

Test:
    file: a;b;c;d.item
    inline: a.item;b.item;c.item;d.item

This is not what I expected. I need to map each name in the file to a separate item. Any ideas?

Solution

When read from the file, the entire contents is considered a single item, so "a;b;c;d" -- when passed into the item specification when @(from_file_items) is defined -- isn't being split up the same way it is when passed to @(inline_items). MSBuild is escaping the value, you need to unescape it.

Change this:

<from_file_items Include="$(from_file)" />

to this:

<from_file_items Include="$([MSBuild]::Unescape($(from_file)))" />