Inside the Microsoft® Build Engine: Using MSBuild and Team Foundation Build (Developer Reference)

As software complexity increases, proper build practices become ever more important. This essential reference drills inside MSBuild—and shows how to maximize your control over the build and deployment process. Learn how to customize and extend build processes with MSBuild—and scale them to the team, product, or enterprise level with Team Foundation Build.

Discover how to:

• Create and modify MSBuild files—outside the Visual Studio IDE
• Use XML-based syntax to declare dynamic properties and items
• Apply built-in tasks or write your own
• Customize the build process—adding code generation, unit testing, or code analysis
  
  
• Use batching and incremental builds to reduce build times
• Invoke external tools in scripts and create reusable files
• Start and stop services
• Set assembly versions and extend the clean process
• Configure, customize, and extend Team Build—and automate build from end to end

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi is a consultant, trainer, and senior software developer who has designed large-scale, distributed applications using a variety of programming languages and platforms, including Microsoft .NET, C++, and Java. This is his third book on MSBuild.