Build MSBuild target without dependencies

Question

Is there any way I can tell MSBuild 4.0 to build a target, but ignore any dependencies? I just want to build that target itself, nothing else.

Answer 1

I would like to reiterate @EMP's solution (and I can't vote him up due to my puny reputation).

The correct way to avoid MSBuild's default behavior of rebuilding all the dependencies listed in the project file is to set the BuildProjectReferences property to false.

In his answer he invokes MSBuild from within an MSBuild script; here's an example from the command line:

MSBuild myproj.csproj /p:Configuration=Debug /p:BuildProjectReferences=false /t:Build 

Answer 2

It turns out the built-in Build target checks a property named BuildProjectReferences to tell whether to build references or not. I do need to run Build on the project itself (otherwise it doesn't work), just not on its dependencies. I ended up calling:

<MSBuild Projects="MyCloudProject.ccproj" Targets="CorePublish" Properties="Configuration=$(Configuration); BuildProjectReferences=false" />