Correct way to use MSBuild Task that generates code with Intellisense

user_1031591 0
Viewed 1439

Context

For some project, we've been attempting to do code generation directly from Visual Studio. The basic idea is that you can create a bunch of (.foo) files, and that each (.foo) file corresponds to a single generated (.foo.cs) file.

Basically the process works as follows:

  1. During build, all .foo files are collected.
  2. Some transformations take place. Note that some of the transformations require information from all the .foo files.
  3. For each .foo file, a .foo.cs file is emitted with a partial class.

Normally I'd create a single file generator (custom tool) for this - however, in this case I'd like to know that the filename is always .foo.cs, and there doesn't seem to be a way this can be controlled from a single file generator. Also, the fact that building requires information from multiple files made me opt for an alternative approach.

Therefore, I created an MS Build Task, and registered it in the csproj:

<UsingTask AssemblyFile="C:\Projects\FooTool\bin\Debug\FooBuildTool.dll"
           TaskName="FooBuildTool.FooTool" />
<Target Name="Foo" BeforeTargets="BeforeBuild" 
        Condition="'$(MSBuildProjectExtension)' == '.csproj'">
    <FooTool Language="C#" ProjectFolder="$(ProjectDir)" 
             ProjectName="$(ProjectName)" Sources="@(Foo)">
        <Output ItemName="FooCompile" TaskParameter="ComputedSources" />
    </FooTool>
    <ItemGroup>
        <Compile Include="@(FooCompile->'%(Outputs)')" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Target>

This works fine in the sense that code generation works and this generates all the required .cs files.

Note that if Intellisense doesn't work until I click 'build' - that's fine.

Situation

The problem now is that Intellisense is broken for the .foo.cs files, and I'm looking for a way to fix this.

I've attempted to fix this by changing the .csproj file even more:

<Compile Include="Test.foo.cs">
  <AutoGen>True</AutoGen>
  <DesignTime>True</DesignTime>
  <DependentUpon>Test.foo</DependentUpon>
</Compile>

...

<Foo Include="Test.foo" Generator="Foo" LastGenOutput="Test.foo.cs" />

This appears to work, in the sense that files now show up in the solution explorer of Visual Studio.

However, I don't know how to create this automatically, and couldn't find any documentation nor an example about it. I'm guessing it has to do with building a proper VSTemplate?

Question

What's the right way to fix this issue? E.g. how can I ensure that generated files show up in Visual Studio, so that Intellisense can pick them up?

visual-studio-templates vssdk visual-studio c#
1 Answers

I had similar problem: I have task that generates some .cs file based on a template. The project is targeting dotnet core 3.1

First I wrote

<Target Name="GenerateEnvFiles" BeforeTargets="BeforeBuild;BeforeClean">

The build worked, but intellisense did not.

I was checking different sources and found an article on msdn where they say:

Design-time IntelliSense To get IntelliSense support in Visual Studio before a build has generated an output assembly, the following conditions must be met:

There must be a target named Compile.

Although setting BeforeTargets=...;Compile didn't work, setting CoreCompile instead worked for me and now both build and intellisense work fine.

I assume the intellisense analyzer has its own workflow where other targets are used other than BeforeBuild. But I didn't find any details about which exactly targets it uses.(For example from the msdn article above I would think BeforeTargets="Compile" should work, while it doesn't)

user_16437050
Related