Duplicate filename different modules overwrites output

[Gulum]

Consider following situation:

Two slice files with the same name but different modules:

Test.ice
module AModule { struct Test { bool active; }; }

Test.ice
module AnotherModule { struct Test { bool active; }; }

The output file Test.h will be overwritten by the last .ice file compilation so that only one header file gets produced. This error usually occur when you use multiple services where possible .ice files have the same name. Our Solution is to use a custom compile script to run slice2cpp and appending the Module name to the output files. E.g. Test.AModule.h and Test.AnotherModule.h. Would be nice to have that as the default behaviour in this msbuild package :).

[pepone]

You can customize the output directory by setting the SliceCompile.OutputDir item metadata

see https://github.com/zeroc-ice/ice-builder-msbuild#customizing-the-slice-to-c-compilation-1

[Gulum]

We are adding the .ice files via nuget content files. This would force us to touch .vcxproj and change it manually before we are operatable. Is there a better way while adding the ice files via nuget to the project?

[pepone]

We are adding the .ice files via nuget content files

Not sure what you mean

[Gulum]

Files in a nuget package declared as content files as follow:

Package.nuspec

 ....
	<files>
		<file src="Slice\AnotherModule\*.ice" target="content\native\Slice\AnotherModule" />
                <file src="Slice\AModule\*.ice" target="content\native\Slice\AModule" />
	</files>

Will add the defined files during the package installation to the .vcxproj resulting in

Project.vcxproj

...
  <ItemGroup>
    <SliceCompile Include="Slice\AModule\Test.ice" />
    <SliceCompile Include="Slice\AnotherModule\Test.ice" />
  </ItemGroup>
...

Entries.

[pepone]

You can try to add a targets file to your NuGet package, that setups the OutputDir, in the target file you can have something like

    <ItemGroup>
        <SliceCompile Update="**\*.ice">
            <OutputDir>generated/%(SliceCompile.RelativeDir)</OutputDir>
        </SliceCompile>
    </ItemGroup>

This update syntax requires MSBuild version 16.6 and later, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/msbuild/msbuild-items?view=vs-2022#updating-metadata-on-items-in-an-itemgroup-outside-of-a-target

[Gulum]

This kinda works. It generates the following physical file output:

generated/%(SliceCompile.RelativeDir)/Test.h 0kb
generated/%(SliceCompile.RelativeDir)/Test.cpp 0kb
generated/AModule/Test.h 12kb
generated/AModule/Test.cpp 20kb
generated/AnotherModule/Test.h 12kb
generated/AnotherModule/Test.cpp 20kb

Unfortunate the 0kb versions of the file are the ones which get added in Visual Studio. Whatever task creates those 0kb files does not expand the %(SliceCompile.RelativeDir) Macro.

[pepone]

it is difficult to follow without a complete example to reproduce the issue

[Gulum]

Test2.zip

Check the generated folder in the project folder after building the project.

[pepone]

I see the problem, I think the Visual Studio IceBuilder plugin isn't expanding the item metadata correctly.

This will work well for a pure MSBuild build, as a workaround you can try something like

<ItemGroup>
        <SliceCompile Update="SliceFiles\AModule\*.ice">
            <OutputDir>generated/AModule</OutputDir>
        </SliceCompile>
         <SliceCompile Update="SliceFiles\AnotherModule\*.ice">
            <OutputDir>generated/AnotherModule</OutputDir>
        </SliceCompile>
    </ItemGroup>

[Gulum]

Thanks for the effort. I will wait for the fix because I would need to touch a lot of projects to implement the workaround.