How to set working directory to NAnt?

Question

I'm just starting to use NAnt. I worked from a tutorial and just tried to set a goal to clear my solution during assembly. The structure of my Visual Studio Solution is as follows:

• Solutions folder
  • Project folder
  • Project folder
  • Tool folder
    • NAnt folder

The NAnt.exe file is located in the Tools / NAnt folder. The .build file is also located here. Here is my .build file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <project name="NAntTest" default="build" xmlns="http://nant.sf.net/release/0.86-beta1/nant.xsd"> <property name="solution.file.name" value="NAntTest.sln" /> <property name="project.config" value="debug" /> <target name="build" depends="clean.source" /> <target name="clean.source"> <exec program="${framework::get-framework-directory(framework::get-target-framework())}\msbuild.exe" commandline="${solution.file.name} /t:Clean /p:Configuration=${project.config} /v:q" workingdir="."/> </target> </project> 

This is how the following example was formatted. If I try to run this assembly, I get an error that the project file does not exist. For the purpose of clean.source, if I replace the workdir attribute with a hard-coded path to my solution base folder, the script compiles and runs correctly. Obviously, this is not ideal for portability if I need to move the project anywhere.

How do I get NAnt to see the base working directory?

Answer 1

My recommendation is to always place the assembly file at the solution level. Then, all relative paths in the assembly file will be equal to the value of the solution.

Answer 2

There is no built-in function to change the current directory, but you can create it in a script block:

  <target name="foo"> <echo message="Current directory set to ${directory::set-current-directory('C:')}"/> <echo message="Current directory is now ${directory::get-current-directory()}"/> </target> <script language="C#" prefix="directory"> <code><![CDATA[ [Function("set-current-directory")] public static string SetCurrentDirectory(string path) { System.IO.Directory.SetCurrentDirectory(path); return path; } ]]></code> </script> 

Of course, you should not rely on the current directory in your scripts or in your code.

Answer 3

You can try to set the basedir attribute of the node project. This may solve your problem.

 <project name="NAntTest" default="build" basedir="C:\Code\MyProject" xmlns="http://nant.sf.net/release/0.86-beta1/nant.xsd"> 

Answer 4

If you set the verbose attribute to nant exec task , then it will spit out the exact command line that it generated. Not sure what your specific problem regarding msbuild execution is. Instead, I used the nantcontrib msbuild task .

Answer 5

Now you can specify the workingdir attribute in the exec element.

According to the documentation, workingdir refers to "the directory in which the command will be executed."

Answer 6

As a task instead of a function:

 <?xml version="1.0"?> <project name="test" default="build"> <script language="C#" prefix="path" > <code> <![CDATA[ [TaskName("set-current-directory")] public class SetCurrentDirectory : Task { private string _path; [TaskAttribute("path", Required=true)] public string Path { get { return _path; } set { _path = value; } } protected override void ExecuteTask() { System.IO.Directory.SetCurrentDirectory(_path);; } } ]]> </code> </script> <target name="build"> <set-current-directory path="c:\Program Files" /> <echo message="${directory::get-current-directory()}" /> </target> </project> 

Output:

 $ nant build: [echo] c:\Program Files