How to build .NET Framework ASP.NET app using dotnet

Question

We have a mixture of ASP.NET Core and .NET Framework ASP.NET apps. We use a mixture of msbuild and dotnet to build the apps.

I'm trying to go all in on dotnet, but the build always throws an error of:

error MSB4019: The imported project "C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\3.0.100-preview5-011568\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v16.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.

Right now I'm just trying with a very simple command of dotnet msbuild foo.sln. No flags or anything being used for now.

I've tried this on multiple ASP.NET (not Core) apps and they all give the same error.

dotnet is the .NET Core-specific tool, MSBuild is the overall build framework that can handle any type of project. Use msbuild in the command line instead to build both types of projects, ie msbuild foo.sln — Panagiotis Kanavos
– Panagiotis Kanavos, Commented Nov 1, 2019 at 11:51
Using "dotnet msbuild" command does not fix the issue for me. — GrantByrne
– GrantByrne, Commented Apr 19, 2022 at 18:55

Felipe Rodrigo Rech · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-01 11:32:11Z

1

For ASP.NET Web applications, you need to compile using the following code.

C:\'Program Files (x86)'\'Microsoft Visual Studio'\[year]\[edition]\MSBuild\Current\Bin\msbuild.exe [project.csproj] /p:VisualStudioVersion=[version] /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:PublishProfile=[profileName]

You can run in cmd or PowerShell. Replace tags according to the version of Visual Studio installed on your machine and solution version.

For Example:

C:\'Program Files (x86)'\'Microsoft Visual Studio'\2019\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin\msbuild.exe HelloWorld.csproj /p:VisualStudioVersion=16.0 /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:PublishProfile=Release

answered Nov 1, 2019 at 11:32

Felipe Rodrigo Rech

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Jovan Zlatanović · Accepted Answer · 2022-11-02 13:08:57Z

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We've solved the Microsoft.WebApplication.targets missing reference by adding it as a NuGet dependency, however the dotnet msbuild command still can't compile all related framework and asp.net projects.

We've also stood up our build server inside a docker container on an ubuntu image, as we were hoping to improve our infra with containerization etc.

However we've hit a wall in building all possible projects using the dotnet executable, even though it has the msbuild command built in.

Anyone had any luck with this? This answer indicates this is not possible though https://stackoverflow.com/a/66366638/6578823

answered Nov 2, 2022 at 13:08

Jovan Zlatanović

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