Replicate VS2008 "Publish Web Site" from command line

Question

I am trying to replicate the exact functionality of this dialogue in Visual Studio 2008 in a build script:

This is an ASP.NET web site, not a web application.

I have Googled around this and turned up quite a bit of stuff involving MSBuild, but this all seems to concern solutions laid out as ASP.NET Web Applications:

http://www.driebier.net/post/Using-MSBuild-to-deploy-visual-studio-2005-web-applications.aspx http://blog.donnfelker.com/post/TFS-Build-Not-Publishing-Web-Applications.aspx

This article seems to be relevant to ASP.NET Web Sites, but I find that I'm getting an error when trying to build using those suggestions:

 C:\dev\T&A>msbuild /t:_CopyWebApplication /property:OutDir=c:\temp\taweb\ /prope rty:WebProjectOutputDir=c:\temp\taweb\  Microsoft (R) Build Engine Version 3.5.30729.1 [Microsoft .NET Framework, Version 2.0.50727.3074] Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 2007. All rights reserved.  Build started 22/04/2009 11:50:42. Project "C:\dev\T&A\TAWeb.sln" on node 0 (_CopyWebApplication target(s)).   Building solution configuration "Debug|.NET". C:\dev\T&A\TAWeb.sln : error MSB4057: The target "_CopyWebApplication" does not  exist in the project. Done Building Project "C:\dev\T&A\TAWeb.sln" (_CopyWebApplication target(s)) --  FAILED.   Build FAILED.  "C:\dev\T&A\TAWeb.sln" (_CopyWebApplication target) (1) ->   C:\dev\T&A\TAWeb.sln : error MSB4057: The target "_CopyWebApplication" does n ot exist in the project.  0 Warning(s)  1 Error(s)  Time Elapsed 00:00:00.06 

The solution I'm trying to publish (inherited, not my own) doesn't have .csproj files (where I could import the _CopyWebApplication target from C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v9.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets)

Perhaps this is a Visual Studio 2005/2008 difference?

Anyway, I feel that I'm going down the wrong path there.

Essentially I just need to achieve exactly what the above dialogue does, but from the command line.

Thanks very much

Answer 1

The following command duplicates the Publish Web Site dialog with default settings.

Command for Publish Web Site with Default Settings

aspnet_compiler -nologo -v / -p "C:\WebSite1" -u "C:\TargetPath"

Reference

1) See Community Content titled You want Publish a site but you have not Visual Studio then... at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/20yh9f1b(classic).aspx.

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 > Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 > Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt
• Microsoft .NET Framework SDK v2.0 > SDK Command Prompt

2) See "ASP.NET Compilation Tool (Aspnet_compiler.exe)" at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229863.aspx.

3) Following excerpt from Walkthrough: Deploying an ASP.NET Web Application Using XCOPY at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/f735abw9.aspx

As an alternative to using the XCOPY command-line tool, which is supported by all versions of the .NET Framework, you can use the new .NET Framework 2.0 tool located at %SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\version 2 or later\Aspnet_compiler.exe to compile and deploy your Web application. For more information, see ASP.NET Compilation Tool (Aspnet_compiler.exe).

4) Following excerpt from How to: Precompile ASP.NET Web Sites for Deployment at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms227976.aspx.

If your Web site is not an Internet Information Services (IIS) application and therefore has no entry in the IIS metabase, used the following value for the -v switch.

aspnet_compiler -p physicalOrRelativePath -v / targetPath

In this case, the physicalOrRelativePath parameter refers to the fully qualified directory path in which the Web site files are located, or a path relative to the current directory. The period (.) operator is allowed in the physicalOrRelativePath parameter. The -v switch specifies a root that the compiler will use to resolve application-root references (for example, with the tilde (~) operator). When you specify the value of / for the -v switch the compiler will resolve the paths using the physical path as the root.