Specifying Custom Build Events in Visual Studio

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2015. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

By specifying a custom build event, you can automatically run commands before a build starts or after it finishes. For example, you can run a .bat file before a build starts or copy new files to a folder after the build is complete. Build events run only if the build successfully reaches those points in the build process.

For specific information about the programming language that you’re using, see the following topics:

• Visual Basic--How to: Specify Build Events (Visual Basic).

• Visual C# and F#--How to: Specify Build Events (C#).

• Visual C++--Specifying Build Events.

Syntax

Build events follow the same syntax as DOS commands, but you can use macros to create build events more easily. For a list of available macros, see Pre-build Event/Post-build Event Command Line Dialog Box.

For best results, follow these formatting tips:

• Add a call statement before all build events that run .bat files.

  Example: call C:\MyFile.bat

  Example: call C:\MyFile.bat call C:\MyFile2.bat

• Enclose file paths in quotation marks.

  Example (for Windows 8): "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.0A\Bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\gacutil.exe" -if "$(TargetPath)"

• Separate multiple commands by using line breaks.

• Include wildcards as needed.

  Example: for %I in (*.txt *.doc *.html) do copy %I c:\mydirectory\

  Note

  %I in the code above should be %%I in batch scripts.

See Also

Compiling and Building Pre-build Event/Post-build Event Command Line Dialog Box MSBuild Special Characters Walkthrough: Building an Application