Copy Task

Copy Task

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Microsoft Visual Studio 2008/.NET Framework 3.5

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.NET Framework General Reference

Copy Task

Copies files on the filesystem to a new location.

Parameters

The folowing table describes the parameters of the Copy task.

Parameter	Description
CopiedFiles	Optional ITaskItem[] output parameter. Contains the items that were successfully copied.
DestinationFiles	Optional ITaskItem[] parameter. Specifies the list of files to copy the source files to. This list is expected to be a one-to-one mapping with the list specified in the SourceFiles parameter. That is, the first file specified in SourceFiles will be copied to the first location specified in DestinationFiles, and so forth.
DestinationFolder	Optional ITaskItem parameter. Specifies the directory to which you want to copy the files. This must be a directory, not a file. If the directory does not exist, it is created automatically.
OverwriteReadOnlyFiles	Optional Boolean parameter. Overwrite files even if they are marked as read only files
SkipUnchangedFiles	Optional Boolean parameter. If true, skips the copying of files that are unchanged between the source and destination. The Copy task considers files to be unchanged if they have the same size and the same last modified time. Note: If you set this parameter to true, you should not use dependency analysis on the containing target, because that only runs the task if the last-modified times of the source files are newer than the last-modified times of the destination files.
SourceFiles	Required ITaskItem[] parameter. Specifies the files to copy.

Remarks

Either the DestinationFolder or the DestinationFiles parameter must be specified, but not both. If both are specified, the task fails and an error is logged.

Example

The following example copies the items in the MySourceFiles item collection into the folder c:\MyProject\Destination.

<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">

    <ItemGroup>
        <MySourceFiles Include="a.cs;b.cs;c.cs"/>
    </ItemGroup>

    <Target Name="CopyFiles">
        <Copy
            SourceFiles="@(MySourceFiles)"
            DestinationFolder="c:\MyProject\Destination"
        />
    </Target>

</Project>

The following example demonstrates how to do a recursive copy. This project copies all of the files recursively from c:\MySourceTree into c:\MyDestinationTree, while maintaining the directory structure.

<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">

    <ItemGroup>
        <MySourceFiles Include="c:\MySourceTree\**\*.*"/>
    </ItemGroup>

    <Target Name="CopyFiles">
        <Copy
            SourceFiles="@(MySourceFiles)"
            DestinationFiles="@(MySourceFiles->'c:\MyDestinationTree\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)')"
        />
    </Target>

</Project>

Concepts

MSBuild Tasks

Other Resources

MSBuild Task Reference

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Copy task does not copy over empty folders

rajeevacharya ... Thomas Lee | Edit | Show History

If your source folders have any empty folders in them, and you use the "Recursive" example, then any empty folders will not get created/copied over to the destination. Add a dummy file in the empty source folder to enable it being copied over/created at the destination.

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MSBuild Framework 3.5 doesn't recognize OverwriteReadOnlyFiles option.

kenmba | Edit | Show History

To get this code to work, you need to put ToolsVersion="3.5" in <Project> tag.

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need to document the recursive syntax better

Steve Nuchia | Edit | Show History

The example indicates that \**\ is special, triggering recursive enumeration of a file tree. But I've found that any wildcard in a folder name triggers the same treatment. I didn't want it to, but it did. No clue in the available documentation that this was going to happen.

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how to call copy task from c# code?

Shekhar M | Edit | Show History

hii plz anybody suggest me how to call copy task thrugh c#?

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OverwriteReadOnlyFiles option not recognized for copy task

chingu | Edit | Show History

NEVERMIND, I just didn't set the ToolsVersion attribute at a high enough level. I didn't realize it had to be set at the top level project tag for it to work in the build.

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