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I know that I can pass MSBuild a VS solution file (.sln) and it will build the solution but somewhere in the back of my mind, I remember using a MSBuild command line switch that would take a solution file (and it's referenced project files) and generate a single MSBuild project file from them. However, I now can't find this switch! Was this all a dream?
I see the /preprocess switch (short form /pp) but I don't think that this was it as this will include all of the imported files (including Microsoft.*.targets) and besides I can't seem to get this switch to work. I when I try the following command line, MSbuild generates the *.out file but its empty!
msbuild /target:rebuild /generate MSBuildCopyTargets.sln
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Visual Studio determines the build order and calls into MSBuild separately (as needed), all completely under Visual Studio's control. Another difference arises when MSBuild is invoked with a solution file, MSBuild parses the solution file, creates a standard XML input file, evaluates it, and executes it as a project.
If you have Visual Studio, then you already have MSBuild installed. With Visual Studio 2019 and later, it's installed under the Visual Studio installation folder. For a typical default installation on Windows 10, MSBuild.exe is under the installation folder in MSBuild\Current\Bin.
At the command line, type MSBuild.exe <SolutionName>. sln , where <SolutionName> corresponds to the file name of the solution that contains the target that you want to execute. Specify the target after the -target: switch in the format <ProjectName>:<TargetName>.
The easiest way to do this is to run MSBuild from the command line, with an environment variable set:
Set MSBuildEmitSolution=1
The output will be in the format SolutionName.metaproj
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