BuildItemGroup Class

Represents a collection of BuildItem objects.

MSBuild is now included in Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework. You can use MSBuild 12.0 side-by-side with versions previously deployed with the .NET Framework.For more information, see What's New in MSBuild 12.0.

Inheritance Hierarchy

System.Object
  Microsoft.Build.BuildEngine.BuildItemGroup

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

Syntax

'Declaration
Public Class BuildItemGroup _
    Implements IEnumerable
public class BuildItemGroup : IEnumerable
public ref class BuildItemGroup : IEnumerable
type BuildItemGroup =  
    class 
        interface IEnumerable 
    end
public class BuildItemGroup implements IEnumerable

The BuildItemGroup type exposes the following members.

Constructors

  Name Description
Public method BuildItemGroup Initializes a new instance of the BuildItemGroup class.MSBuild is now included in Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework. You can use MSBuild 12.0 side-by-side with versions previously deployed with the .NET Framework.For more information, see What's New in MSBuild 12.0.

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Properties

  Name Description
Public property Condition Gets or sets the Condition attribute value of the item group.MSBuild is now included in Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework. You can use MSBuild 12.0 side-by-side with versions previously deployed with the .NET Framework.For more information, see What's New in MSBuild 12.0.
Public property Count Gets a value indicating the number of BuildItem objects in the BuildItemGroup.MSBuild is now included in Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework. You can use MSBuild 12.0 side-by-side with versions previously deployed with the .NET Framework.For more information, see What's New in MSBuild 12.0.
Public property IsImported Gets or sets a value indicating whether the item group was imported into the project.MSBuild is now included in Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework. You can use MSBuild 12.0 side-by-side with versions previously deployed with the .NET Framework.For more information, see What's New in MSBuild 12.0.
Public property Item Gets or sets a BuildItem object in this BuildItemGroup.MSBuild is now included in Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework. You can use MSBuild 12.0 side-by-side with versions previously deployed with the .NET Framework.For more information, see What's New in MSBuild 12.0.

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Methods

  Name Description
Public method AddNewItem(String, String) Adds a new BuildItem with the specified Name and Include property values to the BuildItemGroup.MSBuild is now included in Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework. You can use MSBuild 12.0 side-by-side with versions previously deployed with the .NET Framework.For more information, see What's New in MSBuild 12.0.
Public method AddNewItem(String, String, Boolean) Adds a new BuildItem with the specified Name and Include property values to the BuildItemGroup, allowing you to specify whether the Include property value is treated as a literal.MSBuild is now included in Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework. You can use MSBuild 12.0 side-by-side with versions previously deployed with the .NET Framework.For more information, see What's New in MSBuild 12.0.
Public method Clear Removes the Condition property value and all BuildItem objects from the BuildItemGroup.MSBuild is now included in Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework. You can use MSBuild 12.0 side-by-side with versions previously deployed with the .NET Framework.For more information, see What's New in MSBuild 12.0.
Public method Clone Creates a deep or shallow copy of the BuildItemGroup.MSBuild is now included in Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework. You can use MSBuild 12.0 side-by-side with versions previously deployed with the .NET Framework.For more information, see What's New in MSBuild 12.0.
Public method Equals (Inherited from Object.)
Protected method Finalize (Inherited from Object.)
Public method GetEnumerator Gets an enumerator that iterates through the BuildItemGroup.MSBuild is now included in Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework. You can use MSBuild 12.0 side-by-side with versions previously deployed with the .NET Framework.For more information, see What's New in MSBuild 12.0.
Public method GetHashCode (Inherited from Object.)
Public method GetType (Inherited from Object.)
Protected method MemberwiseClone (Inherited from Object.)
Public method RemoveItem Removes the specified BuildItem from the BuildItemGroup.MSBuild is now included in Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework. You can use MSBuild 12.0 side-by-side with versions previously deployed with the .NET Framework.For more information, see What's New in MSBuild 12.0.
Public method RemoveItemAt Removes the BuildItem at the specified index from the BuildItemGroup. MSBuild is now included in Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework. You can use MSBuild 12.0 side-by-side with versions previously deployed with the .NET Framework.For more information, see What's New in MSBuild 12.0.
Public method ToArray Copies the BuildItem objects in the BuildItemGroup to a new array.MSBuild is now included in Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework. You can use MSBuild 12.0 side-by-side with versions previously deployed with the .NET Framework.For more information, see What's New in MSBuild 12.0.
Public method ToString (Inherited from Object.)

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Remarks

A BuildItemGroup object can represent an ItemGroup element in the project, or a virtual collection of items, containing the items created after evaluating wildcards in the Include and Exclude attributes of an Item element.

Examples

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='https://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
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;

using Microsoft.Build.BuildEngine;

namespace AddNewItem
{
    class Program
    {
        /// <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> 
        /// <param name="args"></param>
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // Create a new Engine object.
            Engine engine = new Engine(Environment.CurrentDirectory);

            // Create a new Project object.
            Project project = new Project(engine);

            // Load the project with the following XML, which contains 
            // two ItemGroups.
            project.LoadXml(@"
                <Project xmlns='https://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. 
            foreach (BuildItemGroup ig in project.ItemGroups)
            {
                BuildItem itemToRemove = null;

                // Iterate through each Item in the ItemGroup. 
                foreach (BuildItem item 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")
                    {
                        itemToRemove = item;
                    }

                    // If the item's name is "EmbeddedResource" and it has a metadata Culture
                    // set to "fr-fr", then ...
                    if ((item.Name == "EmbeddedResource") && (item.GetMetadata("Culture") == "fr-fr"))
                    {
                        // 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");
                    }
                }

                // Remove the item named "RemoveThisItemPlease" from the
                // ItemGroup 
                if (itemToRemove != null)
                {
                    ig.RemoveItem(itemToRemove);
                }

                // 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");
            }

            // The project now looks like this: 
            // 
            //     <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
            //     <Project xmlns="https://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);
        }
    }
}

Thread Safety

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

See Also

Reference

Microsoft.Build.BuildEngine Namespace