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Creating a list of Folders in an ItemGroup using MSBuild

Asked 2009-11-01T17:07:36.423
38

I'm trying to build an ItemGroup in an MSBuild script which contains a list of folders directly below a given 'Root' folder. So - in this example...

+ Root folder
---- Sub Folder 1
-------- Sub-Sub Folder 1
-------- Sub-Sub Folder 2
---- Sub Folder 2
---- Sub Folder 3

... I would want my ItemGroup to contain "Sub Folder 1", "Sub Folder 2" and "Sub Folder 3".

There may be a number of files at any point in the hierarchy, but I'm only interested in the folders.

Can anyone help!?

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2 Answers

31
<PropertyGroup>
    <RootFolder>tmp</RootFolder>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
   <AllFiles Include="$(RootFolder)\**\*"/>
   <OnlyDirs Include="@(AllFiles->'%(Directory)')"/>
</ItemGroup>

@(OnlyDirs) might contain duplicates, so you could either use the RemoveDuplicatesTask :

<Target Name="foo">
   <RemoveDuplicates Inputs="@(OnlyDirs)">
      <Output TaskParameter="Filtered" ItemName="UniqueDirs"/>
   </RemoveDuplicates>
</Target>

or use CreateItem with batching for %(AllFiles.Identity) or with msbuild 3.5:

<Target Name="foo">
   <ItemGroup>
      <UniqueDirs Include="%(AllFiles.Directory)"/>
   </ItemGroup>
</Target>
answered 2009-11-02T10:34:46.813
3

This MSDN Forum post has a custom task that deals with the empty directory case (upvoted accepted as its a v useful answer)

answered 2010-07-22T10:42:43.033

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