Building .NET 4 projects with Nant

Question

How do I get nant to build projects that target the .NET 4.0 Framework?

Answer 1

Just to put the info there so i could find it again, to build C++ projects without modifying the PATH environement variable and creating LIB/LIBPATH/INCLUDE variables or running nant from vsvars32, something like that is needed in Nant config file :

<project>
    <readregistry
        property="WindowsSdkDir"
        key="SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\InstallationFolder"
        hive="LocalMachine"
        failonerror="true" />

    <readregistry
        property="installRoot"
        key="SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework\InstallRoot"
        hive="LocalMachine" />
    <readregistry
        property="sdkInstallRoot"
        key="SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\WinSDK-NetFx40Tools\InstallationFolder"
        hive="LocalMachine"
        failonerror="false" />
    <readregistry
        property="vs10Win32Tools"
        key="SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\WinSDK-Win32Tools\InstallationFolder"
        hive="LocalMachine"
        failonerror="false" />      
    <readregistry
        property="vcInstallDir"
        key="SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Setup\VC\ProductDir"
        hive="LocalMachine"
        failonerror="true" />
    <readregistry
        property="vs10dbghelp"
        key="SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Setup\Dbghelp_path"
        hive="LocalMachine"
        failonerror="true" />

    <setenv name="PATH" value="${path::combine(vcInstallDir, 'bin')};${vs10dbghelp};${sdkInstallRoot};${vs10Win32Tools};${environment::get-variable('PATH')};" />
    <setenv name="INCLUDE" value="${path::combine(WindowsSdkDir, 'include')};${path::combine(vcInstallDir, 'atlmfc/include')};${path::combine(vcInstallDir, 'include')};${environment::get-variable('INCLUDE')}" />
    <setenv name="LIB" value="${path::combine(WindowsSdkDir, 'lib')};${path::combine(vcInstallDir, 'atlmfc/lib')};${path::combine(vcInstallDir, 'lib')};${environment::get-variable('LIB')}" />
    <setenv name="LIBPATH" value="${path::combine(installRoot, 'v4.0.30319')};${path::combine(installRoot, 'v3.5')};${path::combine(WindowsSdkDir, 'lib')};${path::combine(vcInstallDir, 'atlmfc/lib')};${path::combine(vcInstallDir, 'lib')};${environment::get-variable('LIBPATH')}" />
</project> 

The registry path are the one of VS2010 as the corresponding SDK is taking it's time...

Answer 2

This is pretty similar to these questions/problems:

<msbuild> task or msbuild.exe with NAnt?

Another option would be to directly call MSBuild from an block.

<property name="MSBuildPath" value="C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0\MSBuild.exe" />    

<target name="build">
    <exec program="${MSBuildPath}">
            <arg line='"${SolutionFile}"' />
            <arg line="/property:Configuration=${SolutionConfiguration}" />
            <arg value="/target:Rebuild" />
            <arg value="/verbosity:normal" />
            <arg value="/nologo" />
            <arg line='/logger:"C:\Program Files\CruiseControl.NET\server\ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.MsBuild.dll"'/>
    </exec>
</target>