How to turn off caching of build definitions in Visual studio

In project file I import my own target file

<Import Project="Build\CopyDependencies.target" />

and later I call target from that target file

<CallTarget Targets="CopyDependencies" UseResultsCache="false" />

If I edit CopyDependencies.target file I have to reload whole solution and only then changes to CopyDependencies.target take effect. I believe it is some sort of build definitions caching in Visual Studio? If it is, maybe it can be turned off?

Thanks @KazR

Here is a smaller Solution that you can insert into your .csproj file

<Target Name="AfterBuild">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <TempProjectFile>Build.$([System.Guid]::NewGuid()).proj</TempProjectFile>
  </PropertyGroup>
  <Copy SourceFiles="Build.proj" DestinationFiles="$(TempProjectFile)" />
  <MSBuild Projects="$(TempProjectFile)" />
  <ItemGroup>
    <TempProjectFiles Include="Build.????????-????-????-????-????????????.proj"/>
  </ItemGroup>
  <Delete Files="@(TempProjectFiles)" />
</Target>

Problem solved

I don't know how you would disable the VS cache, however I may have a workaround that would allow you to edit the build target without having to reload the solution.

You could use the MSBuild task in your proj file to call a wrapper target that copies your CopyDependencies.target file to CopyDependencies.[RandomNumber].target, then invokes your CopyDependencies target in the newly created file, and finally deletes it.

This would force VS to reload the target on each invocation as the filename is different.

Here's an example:

myProject.proj

Add this to the AfterBuild target:

<MSBuild Projects="Wrapper.target" Targets="MyWrappedTarget" UnloadProjectsOnCompletion="true"/>

Wrapper.target

Here we have the target that will - at build time - copy the real target file and invoke the desired build target within it (I've used an inline c# task which is only available in MSBuild 4.0):

    <UsingTask TaskName="RandomNumber" TaskFactory="CodeTaskFactory" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.Build.Tasks.v4.0.dll">
    <ParameterGroup>
        <Number ParameterType="System.Int32" Output="true"/>
    </ParameterGroup>
    <Task>
        <Code Type="Fragment" Language="cs">
        <!-- CDATA -->
        Random rndGenerator = new Random();
        Number = rndGenerator.Next(Int32.MaxValue);
        <!-- CDATA -->
        </Code>
    </Task>
</UsingTask>

<Target Name="MyWrappedTarget">
    <Message Text="MyWrappedTarget target called"/>


    <RandomNumber>
        <Output TaskParameter="Number" PropertyName="FileNumber"/>
    </RandomNumber>

    <PropertyGroup>
        <CopiedTarget>inner.test.$(FileNumber).target</CopiedTarget>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <Copy SourceFiles="inner.test.target" DestinationFiles="$(CopiedTarget)"/>

    <MSBuild Projects="$(CopiedTarget)" Targets="_innerTestTarget"/>

    <Delete Files="$(CopiedTarget)"/>
</Target>

inner.test.target

This contains the real build target you want to execute, in this example it's a simple file copy.

    <Target Name="_innerTestTarget">

    <Message Text="This is a inner test text message"/>
    <Copy SourceFiles="x.txt" DestinationFiles="x1.txt"/>
</Target>

This isn't production ready, but hopefully illustrates my point.

With this (slightly convoluted) process in place, you can change the inner.test.target file without having to reload the solution in VS.

How to turn off caching of build definitions in Visual studio

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