MSBuild Well-known Item Metadata
Visual Studio 2015
For the latest documentation on Visual Studio 2017, see Visual Studio 2017 Documentation.
For the latest documentation on Visual Studio 2017, see MSBuild Well-known Item Metadata on docs.microsoft.com.
The following table describes the metadata assigned to every item upon creation. In each example, the following item declaration was used to include the file C:\MyProject\Source\Program.cs in the project.
<ItemGroup>
<MyItem Include="Source\Program.cs" />
</ItemGroup>
| Item Metadata | Description |
|---|---|
| %(FullPath) | Contains the full path of the item. For example:C:\MyProject\Source\Program.cs |
| %(RootDir) | Contains the root directory of the item. For example:C:\ |
| %(Filename) | Contains the file name of the item, without the extension. For example:Program |
| %(Extension) | Contains the file name extension of the item. For example:.cs |
| %(RelativeDir) | Contains the path specified in the Include attribute, up to the final backslash (\). For example:Source\ |
| %(Directory) | Contains the directory of the item, without the root directory. For example:MyProject\Source\ |
| %(RecursiveDir) | If the Include attribute contains the wildcard **, this metadata specifies the part of the path that replaces the wildcard. For more information on wildcards, see How to: Select the Files to Build.If the folder C:\MySolution\MyProject\Source\ contains the file Program.cs, and if the project file contains this item: <ItemGroup><MyItem Include="C:\**\Program.cs" /></ItemGroup>then the value of %(MyItem.RecursiveDir) would be MySolution\MyProject\Source\. |
| %(Identity) | The item specified in the Include attribute.. For example:Source\Program.cs |
| %(ModifiedTime) | Contains the timestamp from the last time the item was modified. For example:2004-07-01 00:21:31.5073316 |
| %(CreatedTime) | Contains the timestamp from when the item was created. For example:2004-06-25 09:26:45.8237425 |
| %(AccessedTime) | Contains the timestamp from the last time the item was accessed.2004-08-14 16:52:36.3168743 |
Show: