Implement Command-line option for displaying targets #5032

szaliszali · 2020-01-06T12:06:32Z

This feature request was lying around for a few years, I'm submitting a simple implementation for review and further discussion. As @AndyGerlicher kindly pointed out the already existing preprocess option, it seemed logical to take the same approach for this one.

Sample output for a C# project:

Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 16.5.0-dev-20056-01+fb441875f for .NET Framework
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

CreateManifestResourceNames
ResolveCodeAnalysisRuleSet
XamlPreCompile
ShimReferencePathsWhenCommonTargetsDoesNotUnderstandReferenceAssemblies
_BeforeVBCSCoreCompile
[.... 200+ lines omitted ....]
XsdResolveReferencePath
CleanXsdCodeGen
_SetTargetFrameworkMonikerAttribute
EnsureNuGetPackageBuildImports

Fixes #33

- TODO do we need new MSB error code or edit existing message?

dnfclas · 2020-01-06T12:06:46Z

All CLA requirements met.

Forgind

Thank you! These changes look good to me with just a few minor issues.

Forgind · 2020-01-08T18:00:50Z

src/MSBuild/XMake.cs

@@ -1056,6 +1060,7 @@ string outputResultsCache
                ToolsetDefinitionLocations toolsetDefinitionLocations = ToolsetDefinitionLocations.Default;

                bool preprocessOnly = preprocessWriter != null && !FileUtilities.IsSolutionFilename(projectFile);
+                bool targetsOnly = targetsWriter != null && !FileUtilities.IsSolutionFilename(projectFile);


Please change loadProjectReadOnly (10 lines down) to be !preprocessOnly && !targetsOnly

This does not seem logical for me at first glance, because printing the targets should be a read-only operation.

Also, it looks like the setting will be ignored anyway (see this comment).

I thought I was suggesting it should be read-only, but I might have gotten it flipped. @rainersigwald, do you know better? Otherwise, this looks good to me.

src/MSBuild.UnitTests/CommandLineSwitches_Tests.cs

src/MSBuild/Resources/Strings.resx

src/MSBuild.UnitTests/CommandLineSwitches_Tests.cs

- it was missing from original test

cdmihai · 2020-01-14T19:25:00Z

_BeforeVBCSCoreCompile
[.... 200+ lines omitted ....]
XsdResolveReferencePath

I doubt this would actually be practically useful to anyone. Since MSBuild does not have any information hiding capabilities (you get ALL the hundreds of meaningless targets, not just the entry graph wide operations supported by the current mix of "SDKs"), and since MSBuild does not differentiate the graph wide entry targets (Build, Clean, Rebuild, Test, Restore, Pack) in any way from the implementation targets, this feature will just lead to information overload. It would interesting though, if we introduced graph wide entry targets as first class entities in the language.

I'd be quite curious to learn of a practical usage to this.

Forgind · 2020-01-14T20:03:45Z

One possible use I thought of was if you know roughly what you need but don't know exactly what the target is called. This would make it easier to find the exact target. You can also try to add custom targets, and if they don't show up, you know you didn't add them properly.

The original issue has 30 upvotes and has gotten some activity within the past 6 months, so although it's an old issue, I think it's worth taking this pr.

AndyGerlicher · 2020-01-14T20:17:02Z

One thing I worry about on this feature is it might give the implication of a target contract. Looking at the other commands provided as examples, grunt --help or rake --tasks to me seem to imply those are operational things that will occur or are available to be used. In MSBuild, many of the targets are internal implementations and should really be considered "private" and not exposed like this. The language really isn't setup as a discoverable catalog of functions. Maybe one mitigation would be to filter out all targets starting with _? It's largely convention based, but it would help some with that.

The other is this is pretty trivial to get as a one-off. It seems surprising to me that this would be common enough to go into MSBuild proper. Again unless it's more of a let's see what's available to hook into which is my original concern.

cdmihai · 2020-01-14T20:59:47Z

src/Build/Definition/Project.cs

@@ -1417,6 +1417,11 @@ public void SaveLogicalProject(TextWriter writer)
            implementation.SaveLogicalProject(writer);
        }

+        public void PrintTargets(TextWriter writer)


I'd rather have the Project API only return targets, and not deal with the extra problem domain of printing object model things to streams.

szaliszali · 2020-01-22T12:55:22Z

I'm happy to see that the PR sparked a bit of conversation [also, a bit less happy about the merge conflict]. I'll update as soon as I have a bit of free time.

About usability of the output: I also think that dumping 200 targets is not the most useful thing we could do. For now, I can consider this feature more like a debugging tool than quick help for the confused end-user. Also, would not recommend skipping targets based on naming convention.

This reverts commit a7d46bc.

This reverts commit 4ce6130.

This reverts commit 85b4fe8.

This reverts commit e897624.

This reverts commit 18241d5.

This reverts commit ea11ce4.

…line

szaliszali · 2020-02-02T19:36:43Z

Short explanation for the additional error handler: during testing I experienced several error modes:

missing project file: prints error and halts before doing any work
fatal error during project file loading (e.g. a random text file as project): finds project file and starts loading, then prints error (in red) and exits
valid project with something broken during processing build files (e.g. SDK resolver is missing from msbuild directory): in this case, I could not figure out why the error message is printed in one case and not in the other
- error message (in red) was printed
- no error message was printed and this could confuse users what is (not) happening, this is why I decided to add the extra error handler

I chose this simple way of displaying the message instead of real loggers because I found the logger setup and logging too complicated for this simple task

rainersigwald

Thanks!

The team talked about the possibility of sorting the results, but decided not to bother:

The ideal sort order is by dependency order, but that's not statically knowable.
If you just want alphabetical sort, it's easy to pipe to sort or similar.

rainersigwald · 2020-02-12T17:34:41Z

src/MSBuild/XMake.cs

+            }
+            catch (Exception ex)
+            {
+                var message = ResourceUtilities.FormatResourceStringStripCodeAndKeyword("TargetsCouldNotBePrinted", ex.Message);


Suggested change

var message = ResourceUtilities.FormatResourceStringStripCodeAndKeyword("TargetsCouldNotBePrinted", ex.Message);

var message = ResourceUtilities.FormatResourceStringStripCodeAndKeyword("TargetsCouldNotBePrinted", ex);

This preserves the call stack which can make fixing bugs that report this error MUCH easier.

rainersigwald · 2020-02-12T17:36:54Z

src/MSBuild/XMake.cs

+            {
+                Project project = projectCollection.LoadProject(projectFile, globalProperties, toolsVersion);
+
+                targetsWriter.WriteLine(string.Join(Environment.NewLine, project.Targets.Keys));


Can you call this in a loop?

Suggested change

targetsWriter.WriteLine(string.Join(Environment.NewLine, project.Targets.Keys));

foreach (string target in project.Targets.Keys)

{

targetsWriter.WriteLine(target);

}

That way we don't have to allocate a big string? (it's not super critical here, but it's good practice)

…line # Conflicts: # src/MSBuild/Resources/Strings.resx # src/MSBuild/Resources/xlf/Strings.cs.xlf # src/MSBuild/Resources/xlf/Strings.de.xlf # src/MSBuild/Resources/xlf/Strings.en.xlf # src/MSBuild/Resources/xlf/Strings.es.xlf # src/MSBuild/Resources/xlf/Strings.fr.xlf # src/MSBuild/Resources/xlf/Strings.it.xlf # src/MSBuild/Resources/xlf/Strings.ja.xlf # src/MSBuild/Resources/xlf/Strings.ko.xlf # src/MSBuild/Resources/xlf/Strings.pl.xlf # src/MSBuild/Resources/xlf/Strings.pt-BR.xlf # src/MSBuild/Resources/xlf/Strings.ru.xlf # src/MSBuild/Resources/xlf/Strings.tr.xlf # src/MSBuild/Resources/xlf/Strings.zh-Hans.xlf # src/MSBuild/Resources/xlf/Strings.zh-Hant.xlf

Forgind

LGTM
Thanks!

rainersigwald · 2020-02-18T21:42:55Z

Thanks @szaliszali! This should go out with Visual Studio 16.6 preview 1 (at some point in the future).

videoguy · 2023-01-11T20:36:06Z

Is it available in VS 2019?
I tried, it doesn't seem to be supported.

Forgind · 2023-01-11T20:42:43Z

It should be. What exact version of VS 2019 are you using? 16.11?

videoguy · 2023-01-11T21:02:34Z

VS 2019 16.9.25 build.
Just started an update of VS. Let me check once the update completes.

videoguy · 2023-01-11T21:46:16Z

After the update, it is working. I am wondering if there is something for solution file (.sln) as well.

rainersigwald · 2023-01-11T22:14:09Z

@videoguy not today; that's tracked by #7697.

szaliszali added 7 commits January 6, 2020 12:01

-targets switch (based on preprocess)

7ee3d7a

split else to two ifs

ebea32f

targets switch WIP (calls preprocess for now)

587b84d

- TODO do we need new MSB error code or edit existing message?

print targets

3797c64

update autogenerated localization files

d383686

help for -targets

825069e

update autogenerated localization files

fb44187

Forgind reviewed Jan 8, 2020

View reviewed changes

szaliszali added 8 commits January 9, 2020 12:12

fix PR comment: error message and number

2c9ec9e

update autogenerated localization files

5f2bace

convert duplicated test code to parametrized test

ea11ce4

wrap parameters

18241d5

fix PR comment: inline out vars

e897624

fix PR comment: use Shouldly

85b4fe8

also assert emptyParametersAllowed

4ce6130

- it was missing from original test

fix PR comment: add test for failure and filename

a7d46bc

Forgind added this to the MSBuild 16.6 Preview1 milestone Jan 9, 2020

Forgind added the Feature Request label Jan 10, 2020

cdmihai reviewed Jan 14, 2020

View reviewed changes

szaliszali added 6 commits February 2, 2020 17:55

Revert "fix PR comment: add test for failure and filename"

75049d6

This reverts commit a7d46bc.

Revert "also assert emptyParametersAllowed"

f9d33f5

This reverts commit 4ce6130.

Revert "fix PR comment: use Shouldly"

123897a

This reverts commit 85b4fe8.

Revert "fix PR comment: inline out vars"

c435a1e

This reverts commit e897624.

Revert "wrap parameters"

1278bcb

This reverts commit 18241d5.

Revert "convert duplicated test code to parametrized test"

2846f5e

This reverts commit ea11ce4.

szaliszali added 9 commits February 2, 2020 18:02

revert test code from commit "-targets switch (based on preprocess)"

756840f

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/master' into 33-targets-command-…

e3399be

…line

readd reverted targets switch tests

610a4f1

replace call to project.PrintTargets with a copy

9feb411

remove PrintTargets from Project

435ace8

rename resource key to match message

3a8c585

update autogenerated localization files

31c5b18

add error handling for print targets

26742e9

extract method PrintTargets

9fec2f6

szaliszali requested review from cdmihai and Forgind February 2, 2020 18:55

rainersigwald approved these changes Feb 12, 2020

View reviewed changes

szaliszali added 3 commits February 12, 2020 23:00

preserve stack trace for easier debug

a5f3a02

write targets in a loop

af52500

Forgind approved these changes Feb 12, 2020

View reviewed changes

andrewchoi5 approved these changes Feb 14, 2020

View reviewed changes

rainersigwald merged commit d7af217 into dotnet:master Feb 18, 2020

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Implement Command-line option for displaying targets #5032

Implement Command-line option for displaying targets #5032

szaliszali commented Jan 6, 2020

dnfclas commented Jan 6, 2020 •

edited

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cdmihai commented Jan 14, 2020

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szaliszali commented Jan 22, 2020

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videoguy commented Jan 11, 2023

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videoguy commented Jan 11, 2023 •

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videoguy commented Jan 11, 2023

rainersigwald commented Jan 11, 2023

	var message = ResourceUtilities.FormatResourceStringStripCodeAndKeyword("TargetsCouldNotBePrinted", ex.Message);
	var message = ResourceUtilities.FormatResourceStringStripCodeAndKeyword("TargetsCouldNotBePrinted", ex);

-                targetsWriter.WriteLine(string.Join(Environment.NewLine, project.Targets.Keys));
+                foreach (string target in project.Targets.Keys)
+                {
+                    targetsWriter.WriteLine(target);
+                }

Implement Command-line option for displaying targets #5032

Implement Command-line option for displaying targets #5032

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