TeamCity says to use “Build Parameters” instead of “/property:” in an MSBuild step. What does that mean?

Question

I have a TeamCity server setup to do my CI builds. I'm building and testing a C# solution and running some custom MSBuild tasks. One of these tasks is printing a warning in my build output...

MSBuild command line parameters contains "/property:" or "/p:" parameters. Please use Build Parameteres instead.

I don't understand what this means or how to remove it. It doesn't Google well (with or without the typo). I ran the task from the command line (with /verbosity:diagnostic) and it doesn't appear, so I believe it's a TeamCity message.

The MSBuild task is

<Target Name="InstallDb">
  <MakeDir Directories="$(DbPath)" />
  <Exec Command="sqlcmd -S .\sqlexpress -i db\OmnyxDatabaseDrop.sql" />
  <Exec Command="sqlcmd -S .\sqlexpress -i db\OmnyxDatabaseCreate.sql -v DbPath=&quot;$(DbPath)&quot;" />
  <Exec Command="sqlcmd -S .\sqlexpress -i db\OmnyxDatabaseProgrammability.sql" />
</Target>

And the relevant TeamCity step information is

MSBuild version: 4.0
MSBuild ToolsVersion: 4.0
Run platform: x64
Targets: InstallDb
Command line parameters: /property:DbPath=%env.DB_PATH%

Answer 1

You have to add Build Parameters under Properties and environment variables in the configuration

`

So in the command line parameters in the Build Step for MSBUild, remove any property that is specified as /p: and add each of those to the Build Parameters ( screenshot above) and give the values

Answer 2

It all happens behind the scenes! You just have to follow the right conventions. In your MSBuild script, you use the regular variable notation

$(DbPath)

And in TeamCity, you define a system or env variable

system.DbPath

TeamCity will automagically send all of its system/env variables to your MSBuild task, removing the 'system' or 'env' part. And you don't have to write /property:DbPath=system.DbPath in your TeamCity task.