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BuildItem Class

Represents a single item in an MSBuild project.

Namespace:  Microsoft.Build.BuildEngine
Assembly:  Microsoft.Build.Engine (in Microsoft.Build.Engine.dll)

'Declaration
Public Class BuildItem
'Usage
Dim instance As BuildItem

An Item element in a project can represent multiple items through the use of wildcards. Therefore, each BuildItem object does not necessarily represent an Item element in the project.

The following example creates a Project object and uses the LoadXml method to add content to the project. The BuildItem, BuildItemGroup, and BuildItemGroupCollection classes are used to add, remove, and change items in the project.

Module Module1

    ''' <summary> 
    ''' This code demonstrates the use of the following methods: 
    '''     Engine constructor 
    '''     Project constructor 
    '''     Project.LoadFromXml 
    '''     Project.Xml 
    '''     BuildItemGroupCollection.GetEnumerator 
    '''     BuildItemGroup.GetEnumerator 
    '''     BuildItem.Name (get) 
    '''     BuildItem.Include (set) 
    '''     BuildItem.GetMetadata 
    '''     BuildItem.SetMetadata 
    '''     BuildItemGroup.RemoveItem 
    '''     BuildItemGroup.AddNewItem 
    ''' </summary> 
    ''' <remarks></remarks> 
    Sub Main()

        ' Create a new Engine object. 
        Dim engine As New Engine(Environment.CurrentDirectory)

        ' Create a new Project object. 
        Dim project As New Project(engine)

        ' Load the project with the following XML, which contains 
        ' two ItemGroups.
        project.LoadXml( _
            "<Project xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'>" & _
                "<ItemGroup>" & _
                    "<Compile Include='Program.cs'/>" & _
                    "<Compile Include='Class1.cs'/>" & _
                    "<RemoveThisItemPlease Include='readme.txt'/>" & _
                "</ItemGroup>" & _
                "<ItemGroup>" & _
                    "<EmbeddedResource Include='Strings.resx'>" & _
                        "<LogicalName>Strings.resources</LogicalName>" & _
                        "<Culture>fr-fr</Culture>" & _
                    "</EmbeddedResource>" & _
                "</ItemGroup>" & _
            "</Project>" _
            )

        ' Iterate through each ItemGroup in the Project.  There are two. 
        For Each ig As BuildItemGroup In project.ItemGroups

            Dim itemToRemove As BuildItem
            itemToRemove = Nothing 

            ' Iterate through each Item in the ItemGroup. 
            For Each item As BuildItem In ig

                ' If the item's name is "RemoveThisItemPlease", then 
                ' store a reference to this item in a local variable, 
                ' so we can remove it later. 
                If item.Name = "RemoveThisItemPlease" Then
                    itemToRemove = item
                End If 

                ' If the item's name is "EmbeddedResource" and it has a metadata Culture 
                ' set to "fr-fr", then ... 
                If (item.Name = "EmbeddedResource") And (item.GetMetadata("Culture") = "fr-fr") Then 
                    ' Change the item's Include path to "FrenchStrings.fr.resx",  
                    ' and add a new metadata Visiable="false".
                    item.Include = "FrenchStrings.fr.resx"
                    item.SetMetadata("Visible", "false")
                End If 
            Next 

            ' Remove the item named "RemoveThisItemPlease" from the 
            ' ItemGroup 
            If Not itemToRemove Is Nothing Then
                ig.RemoveItem(itemToRemove)
            End If 

            ' For each ItemGroup that we found, add to the end of it 
            ' a new item Content with Include="SplashScreen.bmp".
            ig.AddNewItem("Content", "SplashScreen.bmp")
        Next 

        ' The project now looks like this: 
        
        '     <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> 
        '     <Project xmlns="http:'schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003"> 
        '       <ItemGroup> 
        '         <Compile Include="Program.cs" /> 
        '         <Compile Include="Class1.cs" /> 
        '         <Content Include="SplashScreen.bmp" /> 
        '       </ItemGroup> 
        '       <ItemGroup> 
        '         <EmbeddedResource Include="FrenchStrings.fr.resx"> 
        '           <LogicalName>Strings.resources</LogicalName> 
        '           <Culture>fr-fr</Culture> 
        '           <Visible>false</Visible> 
        '         </EmbeddedResource> 
        '         <Content Include="SplashScreen.bmp" /> 
        '       </ItemGroup> 
        '     </Project> 
        '
        Console.WriteLine(project.Xml)

    End Sub 

End Module

System.Object
  Microsoft.Build.BuildEngine.BuildItem

Any public static (Shared in Visual Basic) members of this type are thread safe. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe.

Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Starter Edition, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2000 SP4, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 98

The .NET Framework and .NET Compact Framework do not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.

.NET Framework

Supported in: 3.5, 3.0, 2.0
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