Your project dependencies matter (when using NuGet)

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Kristof

At work we had the following issue, we had a Silverlight project consuming some NuGet package, this project was being exposed in a Web application.

In order to keep our solution clean – we didn’t want an ‘assemblies’ folder – we used NuGet package restore.

We did it like the book said, don’t check in the packages folder, enable NuGet package restore, add the required repositories to the nuget.targets, you know the drill.

When building locally we didn’t have any issues. Everybody was able to run the project perfectly. The packages were downloaded from the repository when unavailable locally.

The issue rose when we committed our code to our source control system and ran builds of it with MSBuild.

In order to explain my issue I managed to create a very simple test case.

I created a solution with 2 projects, a web project, and a Silverlight project.

The NuGetTest.Client had a NuGet reference to the package ‘MvvmLight’.

When you commit code to source control and run builds of it with MSBuild, it is supposed to download the NuGet package, and then build of that.

However, if we invoke the build we are presented with the following error:

What? Why?

So I went to check the packages folder on the Build location:

It’s there! How could it not find the dll?

Time to dig deeper.

The command line executed for the project was simple:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe /nologo /noconsolelogger "C:\Builds\1\NuGetTest\New Build Definition 1\Sources\Dev\NuGetTest.sln" /m:1 /fl /flp:"logfile=C:\Builds\1\NuGetTest\New Build Definition 1\Sources\Dev\NuGetTest.log;encoding=Unicode;verbosity=diagnostic" /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true  /p:OutDir="C:\Builds\1\NuGetTest\New Build Definition 1\Binaries\\" /p:VCBuildOverride="C:\Builds\1\NuGetTest\New Build Definition 1\Sources\Dev\NuGetTest.sln.vsprops"  /dl:WorkflowCentralLogger,"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\Tools\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Server.Logger.dll";"Verbosity=Diagnostic;BuildUri=vstfs:///Build/Build/8;InformationNodeId=622;TargetsNotLogged=GetNativeManifest,GetCopyToOutputDirectoryItems,GetTargetPath;TFSUrl=http://localhost:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection;"*WorkflowForwardingLogger,"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\Tools\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Server.Logger.dll";"Verbosity=Diagnostic;"

I slimmed it down to the real deal (removed logging), and ended up with this:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe "C:\Builds\1\NuGetTest\New Build Definition 1\Sources\Dev\NuGetTest.sln" /m:1 /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true

Now I download the latest version of the project locally, and execute that command line:

$"d:\Personal\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\NuGetTest\NuGetTest.sln" (default target) (1) ->"d:\Personal\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\NuGetTest\NuGetTest.Host\NuGetTest.Host.csproj" (default target) (2) ->"d:\Personal\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\NuGetTest\NuGetTest.Client\NuGetTest.Client.csproj" (default target) (3:2) ->(CoreCompile target) -> ViewModel\MainViewModel.cs(1,7): error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'GalaSoft' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?) [d:\Personal\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\NuGetTest\NuGetTest.Client\NuGetTest.Client.csproj] ViewModel\MainViewModel.cs(17,34):errorCS0246: The type or namespace name 'ViewModelBase' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?) [d:\Personal\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\NuGetTest\NuGetTest.Client\NuGetTest.Client.csproj] ViewModel\ViewModelLocator.cs(15,7): error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'GalaSoft' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assemblyreference?)[d:\Personal\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\NuGetTest\NuGetTest.Client\NuGetTest.Client.csproj]$

And we’re greeted with a lot of text, and at the end the same error. So it’s not the user that executes the build (he has sufficient rights).

What seems to happen here?

If we check the log we can see that the NuGetTest.Client is built because NuGetTest.Host depends on it:

Project "d:\Personal\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\NuGetTest\NuGetTest.Host\NuGetTest.Host.csproj" (2) is building "d:\Personal\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\NuGetTest\NuGetTest.Client\NuGetTest.Client.csproj" (3) on node 1 (GetXapOutputFile target(s)).

If we then continue reading the log file we can see that NuGet’s RestorePackages task is only executed after this task, which results in MSBuild trying to build the Silverlight project before all the required assemblies are downloaded.

How can we solve this? We can specify that the Silverlight project should be built before the web project, and thus forcing the RestorePackages to execute in order (before the build of the Silverlight project).

We can do this by going to project dependencies in the Solution Explorer, just do a right mouse on your solution and go to “Properties”.

In that window go to “Project Dependencies”:

In the “Project” dropdown you select your host project (here “NuGetTest.Host”), and check the checkbox of every Silverlight Project it depends on. This will make MSBuild explicitly build that project before continuing to the web project.

Good luck & have a good one!

Team Foundation 2010: Associate work item with changeset AFTER check in.

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Kristof

Today I was struggling associating a work item with a changeset after a check in. There is however no options for this in the UI. Or is there? Let’s check:

Ok, so not through the changeset UI.

Let’s check the command line.

c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC>tf changeset /?
TF - Team Foundation Version Control Tool, Version 10.0.30319.1
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Displays information about a changeset and lets you change the associated
attributes, such as comments and check-in notes.

tf changeset [/comment:("comment"|@commentfile)]
             [/notes:("NoteFieldName"="NoteFieldValue"|@notefile)] [/noprompt]
             [/collection:TeamProjectCollectionUrl]
             [changesetnumber | /latest] [/login:username,[password]]

(emphasis mine).

So not through the command line. Now what? Let’s think: we want to associate a changeset with a work item. Why not look the other way around?

After the successful commit remember the changeset # (in our example 25464), go to the work item you want to associate the changeset to.

Right bottom you’ll see a tab called ‘Links’ (1), click it, and then click the ‘Link to’ (2) button.

In the next window, select ‘Changeset’ (1) and enter the number in the box (2). Hit ‘OK’ (3).

After that hit ‘CTR+S’ to save your work item.

After that go back to your changeset:

It works!

Have a good one!

-Kristof

Stopping Casini before (re)building website in Visual Studio

Posted on October 22, 2010 by Kristof

Hi ya’ll,

I sometimes use Casini to debug local web applications. Casini is easy to configure, no need to create a virtual directory, it’s gone after you close Visual Studio so it’s easy.

The problem is that sometimes when changing some code, Casini’s caches aren’t cleared. So you get a stale version of your webpage (or Silverlight or …).

While playing with Powershell I found a little gem called Stop-Process. It even accepts wildcards! Which is nice, since there are 2 WebDev.Webservers. One for .NET 2.0 and one for .NET 4.0.

How can we link this to Visual Studio? Easy. Go to your web project and double-click properties:

Then go to Build Events, and enter the following text in the Pre-Build event command line (as shown on the picture):

powershell Stop-Process -name webdev.webserver*

Next time when you rebuild, Casini will be stopped, and you will always start from a clean page

Enjoy.

-Kristof

Visual Studio 2010 PowerTools

Posted on September 11, 2010 by Kristof

Hi All,

Since I’ve installed Visual Studio 2010 PowerTools I’ve had the following problem:

Entering shift+enter didn’t break the line anymore.

This is because of the autocomplete braces function of the PowerTools.

You can disable this function by clicking Options in the Tools Menu:

And then click ‘Productivity Power Tools’ on the left:

In that window set ‘Automatic Brace Completion’ to ‘Off’.

Now restart your Visual Studio 2010 (Important!)

Unfortunately this doesn’t restore the shortcut in the keyboard settings of Visual Studio 2010.

To fix this go to your keyboard settings in Visual Studio 2010:

And enter this string in the search box: ‘Edit.BreakLine’ (without the quotes).

As you can see only ‘Enter’ is mapped to BreakLine.

Now set focus to the ‘Press shortcut keys’ textbox and press Shift+Enter. And then hit Assign.

This is the end result:

There we go

Take it easy,

Kristof

Visual Studio 2010 Pro Power Tools and closing square bracket problem on AZERTY

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Kristof

There seems to be a problem with the default keyboard mapping of the so called ‘Align Assignments’ found in the Visual Studio 2010 Pro Power Tools.

The default shortcut is mapped to Control + Alt + ]. While this is not a problem on a QWERTY these keystrokes are used to type a square bracket on a AZERTY keyboard:

As you can see the character on the lower right corner needs to be accessed with Ctrl + Alt + key or the Alt Gr + key. This way you trigger the ‘Edit.AlignAssignments’ on your keyboard. Thus the ‘]’ doesn’t appears on screen, it merely aligns the current line.

Solution: remove or remap the shortcut.

Thanks to Gill Cleeren for pointing out this problem.

Dispose and Finalizing, done the right way

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Kristof

I created this class to make life a little bit easier for me.

You are free to use it as you wish!

How to use:

Override this class, override ReleaseManaged() and ReleaseUnmanaged() with the appropriate code, and you are good to go.

namespace SuperDisposeImplementation
{
    using System;

    /// <summary>
    /// Override this class for easy releasing of managed and unmanaged code.
    /// </summary>
    /// <remarks>
    /// By Kristof Mattei
    /// Use as you wish
    /// I don't hold the copyright
    /// Combined from code I found everywhere.
    /// </remarks>
    public abstract class SuperDispose : IDisposable
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// True if managed resources are already cleaned up, false if not
        /// </summary>
        private bool _disposed;

        #region IDisposable Members

        /// <summary>
        /// Implementation of IDisposable.Dispose(). Don't make virtual
        /// </summary>
        public void Dispose()
        {
            this.Dispose(true);
            // This object will be cleaned up by the Dispose method.
            // Therefore, you should call GC.SupressFinalize to
            // take this object off the finalization queue
            // and prevent finalization code for this object
            // from executing a second time.
            GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
        }

        #endregion

        /// <summary>
        /// Dispose(bool disposing) executes in two distinct scenarios.
        /// If disposing equals true, the method has been called directly
        /// or indirectly by a user's code. Managed and unmanaged resources
        /// can be disposed.
        /// If disposing equals false, the method has been called by the
        /// runtime from inside the finalizer and you should not reference
        /// other objects. Only unmanaged resources can be disposed.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="disposing">True when called from the Dispose, false when called from the ~. Don't call yourself</param>
        private void Dispose(bool disposing)
        {
            // Check to see if Dispose has already been called.
            if (!this._disposed)
            {
                // If disposing equals true, dispose all managed
                // and unmanaged resources.
                if (disposing)
                {
                    this.ReleaseManaged();
                }

                // Dispose unmanaged resources.
                this.ReleaseUnmanaged();

                // disposing has been done, make sure we don't dispose the managed ones again.
                this._disposed = true;
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Override this method, and release unmanaged resources in that method
        /// </summary>
        protected abstract void ReleaseUnmanaged();

        /// <summary>
        /// Override this method, and release managed resources in that method
        /// </summary>
        protected abstract void ReleaseManaged();

        /// <summary>
        /// Use C# destructor syntax for finalization code.
        /// This destructor will run only if the Dispose method
        /// does not get called.
        /// It gives your base class the opportunity to finalize.
        /// Do not provide destructors in types derived from this class.
        /// </summary>
        ~SuperDispose()
        {
            // make sure we don't dispose managed resources, hence the false
            // this is because we can't control the called order of
            this.Dispose(false);
        }
    }
}

Windows Azure SDK: connecting to non SQLExpress Instance

Posted on January 28, 2010 by Kristof

When you want to build an Azure application, but you don’t have SQL Express installed the build action in Visual Studio will fail.

You will receive the following message in your output window:

Windows Azure Tools: Failed to initialize the Development Storage service. Unable to start Development Storage. Failed to start Development Storage: the SQL Server instance ‘localhost\SQLExpress’ could not be found. Please configure the SQL Server instance for Development Storage using the ‘DSInit’ utility in the Windows Azure SDK.

To fix this you open the Windows Azure SDK Command Prompt:

And enter the following text:

dsinit /sqlinstance:.

This will cause Azure to use the default instance (with no name). You can switch this to whatever you like, just replace the . (dot) by the appropriate MS SQL instance.

The result will look like this:

Good luck, happy coding.

How to enable auto attribute quotes with ASP.NET in Visual Studio

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Kristof

Check the ‘Insert attribute value quotes when typing under Text Editor > HTML > Format

LINQ to Entities: EntityReference

Posted on July 21, 2009 by Kristof

When creating one to many relationships one might bump into the following problem:

Consider the following database design:

Tables:

Customers
-Id
-FirstName
-LastName
-…snip…
-City

Cities
-Id
-Name
-Zip

With a many to one relation from Customers.City to Cities.Id

While this is easy to do in SQL, the LINQ to Entities syntax might seem a bit different.

Consider the following piece of code:

City c = (from city in ctx.CitySet
where city.Name == cityName && city.Zip == cityZip
select city).FirstOrDefault();

This selects the city (if it exists) or null.

Now the problem is: IF the city exists, how do I point the current customer’s city to that particular city.

I tried this:

//customer is a customer object
customer.City = c;

But that resulted in duplicate cities in the database.

The solution was actually quite easy, I browsed through all the properties (Intellisense!) and found this:

customer.CityReference.EntityKey = c.EntityKey;

This resulted in the one to many relationship I had in mind. No duplicate cities in my database.

I love database normalization!

.NET: Entity Framework: re-add a deleted table resolved!

Posted on May 3, 2009 by Kristof

First of all: for those who think that there is an easy solution. I’m sorry, there is not.

The problem is located in the .edmx file, and not in the designer.cs file as I suspected first.

When you add an .edmx and take a look at it with notepad you’ll see this:

Now you add a table:

As you can see I’ve added a table ‘Users’ with ‘UserID’, ‘Name’ and ‘Birthday’.

You can also see the difference between the 2.

Now when you delete the table again from the design surface this is what ‘junk’ that stays behind:

As you can see lines 9 and 12-17 weren’t there in the original -empty- model. You’ll need to clean those up manually.

Removing those lines will give you the possibility to re-add your previously deleted table.

Kristof's blog

A blog on my experiences in programming, work, and life!

Category Archives: Visual Studio