Creating Powershell pre-build and post-build events for Visual Studio projects
Posted by David Frette on January 20, 2011
I had a need to create a cab file containing the files from two project folders, plus a file at the root. Instead of learning Visual Studio addins, I created a PowerShell script that ran on Visual Studio’s pre-build event. Using the post-build would have meant that the cab file was created after the SharePoint wsp package. The pre-build event is the way to go here. So, first thing I did was create a PowerShell script that in turn, created a cab file. This script makes use of the makecab utility that ships with Visual Studio. To create a cab with this utility, one needs a Diamon Directive File, or ddf. This file contains a set of instructions followed by a list of files. I’ll post the script at the end of this article, but it’s not really my focus. What really got me tripped up was (1) getting powershell to run and (2) getting parameters into the script correctly – as it turns out, a space makes a difference! Here are the steps:
First, to do this, you’ll need PowerShell v2 (or better). Version 2 contains the -File cmdlet, which lets you run a script (*.ps1 file) from a powershell prompt. If you run Windows Server 2008 R2, then you have PowerShell v2. Otherwise, you may need to download it.
Second, you’ll need to set the execution policy. Assuming you are on a dev box (Visual Studio and all), you can set the execution policy to unrestricted, via set-executionpolicy unrestricted. To check your current policy, use get-executionpolicy.
Third, keep in mind Visual Studio is 32-bit, while powershell has both, 32 and 64-bit versions with their own policies. The 32-bit VS should call the 32-bit version of PowerShell. Here is a screenshot showing the different powershell prompts and different execution policies.
Fourth, here is my script that will render arguments to the console. Yep, that’s all it needs to do.
Finally, the passing of parameters from Visual Studio is quirky. When I used “($ProjectDir)” “($ProjectDir)\bin” Visual Studio passed that to PowerShell as one parameter. When I added a space “($ProjectDir) ” “($ProjectDir)\bin” Visual Studio passed that as 2 parameters. Here are the screenshots.
Finally, here is the script that will make the cab file. It’s all about making the ddf file. Enjoy!!
Note: If changing the execution policy at a powershell prompt does not seem to work (ie, Visual Studio still returns an error such as:
------ Rebuild All started: Project: SPProject, Configuration: Debug Any CPU ------ Compile complete -- 0 errors, 1 warnings File C:\MakeHCCab.ps1 cannot be loaded because the execution of scripts is disabled on this system. Please see "get-help about_signing" for more details. + CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [], ParentContainsErrorRecordE xception + FullyQualifiedErrorId : RuntimeException
then you can use
powershell -command "set-executionpolicy unrestricted"
in the prebuild event before the -file command.
