MSBuild passing parameters to CallTarget

Solution 1:

MSBuild targets aren't designed to receive parameters. Instead, they use the properties you define for them.

<PropertyGroup>
    <Environment>myValue</Environment>
</PropertyGroup>

<Target Name="Deploy">
    <!-- Use the Environment property -->
</Target>

However, a common scenario is to invoke a Target several times with different parameters (i.e. Deploy several websites). In that case, I use the MSBuild MSBuild task and send the parameters as Properties:

<Target Name="DoDeployments">
    <MSBuild Projects ="$(MSBuildProjectFullPath)"
             Properties="VDir=MyWebsite;Path=C:\MyWebsite;Environment=$(Environment)"
             Targets="Deploy" />

    <MSBuild Projects ="$(MSBuildProjectFullPath)"
             Properties="VDir=MyWebsite2;Path=C:\MyWebsite2;Environment=$(Environment)"
             Targets="Deploy" />
</Target>

$(MSBuildProjectFullPath) is the fullpath of the current MSBuild script in case you don't want to send "Deploy" to another file.

Hope this helps!

Solution 2:

You can 'foreach' over an ItemGroup with a target, only you have to do it in declaritive manner. You can even have additional metadata in items, like in the code example:

<ItemGroup>
    <What Include="Dev">
        <How>With bugs</How>
    </What>
    <What Include="Test">
        <How>With tests</How>
    </What>
    <What Include="Chicken">
        <How>Deep fried</How>
    </What>
</ItemGroup>

<Target Name="Deploy">
    <Message Text="@(What), %(How)" />
</Target>

Using an item group as a scalar value @(What) inside a target does the trick, and %(How) references a metadata element in a foreach item.

It's a natural way of doing things in msbuild, for example you can find this pattern everywhere in project files generated with Visual Studio.