I blogged my initial thoughts on Nant and my hopes for finding some better tools beyond what I had found just before lunch. When I got back from lunch, Darrell Norton replied with an XSLTTransformer application over on C# Corner. I found the vsconvert.xsl file via Gordon Weakliem’s blog and now I have a nearly working project build. Once I get this fixed, I anticipate running a nant script that creates a new build based on project settings at the beginning of each automated run. I’m not sure this is the way to go, but I’ll give it a shot.
Thanks Darrell!
I should point out that vsconvert.xsl is part of the NAntContrib project as well, any future updates will be made to the version in NAntContrib. Right now, the C++ project generator doesn’t work, so that’s the main thing that would need to be fixed. I also think that Michael Gold’s article is a bit wrongheaded; a conversion GUI is so counter to the spirit of an automated build. If you plan your directory structure right, you can construct a master build file that iterates over your projects and automatically converts and builds each Visual Studio project; ensuring your build file is always in sync. Manually keeping build files in sync with VS.NET is a big pain.
Cool, Steve, glad to help! Let us know how it goes.