ItemGroup Element (MSBuild)

ItemGroup Element (MSBuild)

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Microsoft Visual Studio 2008/.NET Framework 3.5

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.NET Framework General Reference

ItemGroup Element (MSBuild)

Contains a set of user-defined Item elements. Every item used in a MSBuild project must be specified as a child of an ItemGroup element.

<ItemGroup Condition="'String A' == 'String B'">
    <Item1>... </Item1>
    <Item2>... </Item2>
</ItemGroup>

Attributes and Elements

The following sections describe attributes, child elements, and parent elements.

Attributes

Attribute	Description
Condition	Optional attribute. Condition to be evaluated. For more information, see MSBuild Conditions.

Child Elements

Element	Description
Item	Defines the inputs for the build process. There may be zero or more Item elements in an ItemGroup.

Parent Elements

Element	Description
Project	Required root element of an MSBuild project file.

Example

The following code example shows the user-defined item collections Res and CodeFiles declared inside of an ItemGroup element. Each of the items in the Res item collection contains a user-defined child ItemMetadata element.

<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
    <ItemGroup>
        <Res Include = "Strings.fr.resources" >
            <Culture>fr</Culture>
        </Res>
        <Res Include = "Dialogs.fr.resources" >
            <Culture>fr</Culture>
        </Res>

        <CodeFiles Include="**\*.cs" Exclude="**\generated\*.cs" />
        <CodeFiles Include="..\..\Resources\Constants.cs" />
    </ItemGroup>
...
</Project>

Concepts

MSBuild Project File Schema Reference

MSBuild Items

Tags

: build (x) internal (x) tfs (x) Add a tag

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Annotations

Project is not the only Parent element allowed

DaveD008 ... Vaccanoll | Edit | Show History

I've discovered, somewhat by accident, that it's also possible to have an ItemGroup element work nested in a Target element. Here's an example of what I mean:

<Target Name="SetMetaData">
 <ItemGroup>
  <MyItems Condition=" '%(MyItems.MyOtherMetaData)'=='true' " >
   <MyMetaData>$(MyMetaDataValue)</MyMetaData>
  </MyItems>
 </ItemGroup>
</Target>

This makes it quite easy to add/ modify item metadata.

This fact may be well-known by experienced MSBuild users, but as a beginning-level MSBuild student, I rely heavily on these MSDN docs, and I've not seen this behavior documented anywhere in here.

This is only true in MSBuild 3.5. You also have to have ToolsVersion="3.5" defined in the project section or it will not work.

Vaccano