Build script with C#

Question

For insight into the below, read: http://martinfowler.com/articles/rake.html

I've been using Rake (with Albacore) recently, and like it alot. Mostly the strength of having the Ruby language right at hand when I need it.

I must admit I am alot more at home with C# - and that lead me to thinking if there was an equivalent to Rake in the .NET world.

What I am looking for is a way to write build scripts in C#, or maybe a DSL, having the same dependency programming model, where I can also use C#.

Maybe I'm way off base asking this question. But if it's possible to do with Ruby (and an internal DSL), then I can't right off the bat say why the same wouldn't be possible for C#. And I certainly don't understand why it hasn't already been done :-)

Anyone have some perspectives on the issue?

What we already know:

• C# needs to be compiled to run, so we would need to create a seperate build-script, that is parsed, and compiled at run-time by an executable.

Thanks in advance!

Solution

Use "Cake" http://cakebuild.net/ -- with Roslyn compiler what I wanted (years ago) is now possible. Thanks Microsoft. And thanks to the people who wrote Cake.

An alternative is to use Powershell. The library is called Psake (saké)

Answer 1

Maybe Cake is what you're looking for: https://github.com/cake-build/cake

Answer 2

A lot of people do use Rake for build scripts. There are even Rake tasks just for .NET. http://albacorebuild.net/

But there is a c# based make utility I know about. http://shake.codeplex.com/ And I thought I saw one on github. But I think they require a compile and that didn't seem as cool.

I ended up on https://github.com/psake/psake mainly because I wanted to learn Powershell and everyone already had it installed.

Hmm Bounce too https://github.com/refractalize/bounce

Answer 3

You can script your build/deployment tasks with msbuild and then script your tasks and execute them from bat files.