How can I use MSBuild Copy Task to Copy To Multiple Destination Folders?

Question

I\'m trying to copy a folder recursively to multiple destination folders using MSBuild\'s Copy task. I\'ve seen the following question which gave me a good sta

Answer 1

What you are dealing with here is known as batching. I have blogged quite a bit about batching. You can find my blogs listed at http://sedotech.com/Resources#Batching. Batching is a way to do a loop without really doing one in MSBuild. You can split groups into values with a common metadata value. Metadata could be values like Identity, FullPath, Filename, etc. You can even make your own metadata. In any case when you batch on more than 1 value they are batched independently of each other. Take a look at the example that I created. The result of executing the target is shown after the script.

  
    
  

  
    
    
  

  
  
    

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
      <_DeployPathIdentity>%(DeployPath.Identity)
    
    

    
    
  

Output

Build started 9/10/2010 9:31:28 PM.
Project "I:\Development\My Code\Community\MSBuild\CopyFiles01.proj" on node 1 (default targets).
Demo:
  DeployPath.Identity: C:\temp\path01\
  ======================================
  ItemsToCopy1: src\0001.txt;src\0002.txt;src\sub\sub-0001.txt;src\sub\sub-0002.txt|| DeployPath.I
  dentity: C:\temp\path01\
  ======================================
  ItemsToCopy2: || DeployPath.Identity-RecursiveDir: C:\temp\path01\\
  ItemsToCopy2: src\0001.txt;src\0002.txt;src\sub\sub-0001.txt;src\sub\sub-0002.txt|| DeployPath.I
  dentity-RecursiveDir: \
  ======================================
  ItemsToCopy3: src\0001.txt;src\0002.txt;src\sub\sub-0001.txt;src\sub\sub-0002.txt|| _DeployPathI
  dentity-RecursiveDir: C:\temp\path01\\
  Creating directory "C:\temp\path01".
  Copying file from "src\0001.txt" to "C:\temp\path01\0001.txt".
  Copying file from "src\0002.txt" to "C:\temp\path01\0002.txt".
  Copying file from "src\sub\sub-0001.txt" to "C:\temp\path01\sub-0001.txt".
  Copying file from "src\sub\sub-0002.txt" to "C:\temp\path01\sub-0002.txt".
Demo:
  DeployPath.Identity: C:\temp\path02\
  ======================================
  ItemsToCopy1: src\0001.txt;src\0002.txt;src\sub\sub-0001.txt;src\sub\sub-0002.txt|| DeployPath.I
  dentity: C:\temp\path02\
  ======================================
  ItemsToCopy2: || DeployPath.Identity-RecursiveDir: C:\temp\path02\\
  ItemsToCopy2: src\0001.txt;src\0002.txt;src\sub\sub-0001.txt;src\sub\sub-0002.txt|| DeployPath.I
  dentity-RecursiveDir: \
  ======================================
  ItemsToCopy3: src\0001.txt;src\0002.txt;src\sub\sub-0001.txt;src\sub\sub-0002.txt|| _DeployPathI
  dentity-RecursiveDir: C:\temp\path02\\
  Creating directory "C:\temp\path02".
  Copying file from "src\0001.txt" to "C:\temp\path02\0001.txt".
  Copying file from "src\0002.txt" to "C:\temp\path02\0002.txt".
  Copying file from "src\sub\sub-0001.txt" to "C:\temp\path02\sub-0001.txt".
  Copying file from "src\sub\sub-0002.txt" to "C:\temp\path02\sub-0002.txt".
Done Building Project "I:\Development\My Code\Community\MSBuild\CopyFiles01.proj" (default targets
).


Build succeeded.