Did you know? – NuGetGallery Build (part 3)

In the previous posts we saw how the NuGetGallery build got kicked off by Build-Solution.ps1, which internally went and grabbed the connection string from the website’s web.config using Get-ConnectionString.ps1. At the end of the file it finally calls msbuild.exe passing the NuGetGallery.msbuild file and the connection string (pay special attention to the /t:FullBuild at the end which defines which target to run):

$projFile = join-path $scriptPath Scripts\NuGetGallery.msbuild
& "$(get-content env:windir)\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe" $projFile /p:DbConnection=$connectionString /t:FullBuild

Let’s peel another piece of the onion and look at this msbuild file (simplified):

<Project DefaultTargets="Build">
  <Target Name="Clean">
    <MSBuild Projects="..\NuGetGallery.sln" Targets="Clean" Properties="Configuration=$(Configuration)"/>
  </Target>
  
  <Target Name="Build" DependsOnTargets="Clean">
    <MSBuild Projects="..\NuGetGallery.sln" Targets="Build" Properties="Configuration=$(Configuration);CodeAnalysis=true;" />
  </Target>

  <Target Name="RunFacts" DependsOnTargets="Build"> ... </Target>
  <Target Name="FullBuild" DependsOnTargets="RunFacts;UpdateDatabase" />
</Project>

This is where it starts to wire up a list of targets to run during the build. As you can see, the “FullBuild” target is empty, but depends on the “RunFacts” and “UpdateDatabase” targets. Working our way back, the “RunFacts” depends on “Build”, which in turn depends on “Clean”.

Phew, maybe we can now do some work? All right, at this point it calls msbuild to run the “Clean” target on the NuGetGallery.sln file. I am going to skip how this part works, the important thing is that all the projects included in the solution will delete all their intermediate and final build outputs. Note: the “Clean” target is defined in “Microsoft.Common.targets” file which lives in your framework directory.