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Post Build Events

Say you want to automate the process of moving your mod to your plugin folder, or maybe run custom commands after. Maybe some files need to be moved before hand. To do this, visual studio has things called "Pre-Build Events" and "Post-Build Events". You can find these under your project properties (You find these under "Project" at the top, followed by "Properties" all the way at the bottom alt, P, P) Under Build Events, you will see two text fields: Pre-build and Post-Build.

Pre-build events are run before the compiler compiles your project, and post-build after. We will mainly focus on post-build events here.

The language for these events is Batch with additional macros with variables localized to your project. While this page shall not go into the details of language, we will discuss some of the more commonly used post-build events.

If you are running into issues due to macros being empty. Feel free to hop into the discord and ask Paddywan or ping Harb. We'll share your pain and hopefully be able to tell you how to remedy it.

Copy output DLL

Most commonly used is the copy command to get your dll to where you want it. 

copy <something> <somewhere>
::example
copy /Y "$(TargetPath)" "$(SolutionPath)Builds\"
Let's go over the arguments individually - copy signifies a copy instruction. It takes two arguments: what to copy and where to copy it to. - /y is a flag for the copy instruction to suppress the prompting if you want to overwrite the destination file. - "$(TargetPath)" is a macro to the output dll produced by building the project. See macros at the end of the page. - "$(ProjectPath)Builds\" is a folder named Builds right next to your .sln file. This is especially useful if you want to have folder containing all latest builds of your mods contained in your solution.

Use xcopy to copy a folder if your mod requires multiple files.

External Programs

If you have external files or programs you want to run, simply provide the absolute path to run it, followed by any arguments that you might need it. 

[program] arg1 arg2 etc
::example
C:\MyAwesomeProgram.exe -makeReallyCool "$(TargetPath)"
Now sometimes you want to use the output of such a program in your build events. Because batch is windows and sometimes dumb, you need to save it to a file first. 
[program] arg1 arg2 etc > file.ext
set VARNAME=<file.ext
del file.ext
::example
C:\MyAwesomeProgram.exe -makeReallyCool "$(TargetPath)" > temp.txt
set COOLDLL=<temp.txt
del temp.txt
Afterwards you can use this variable in commands by using %VARNAME%, in the example's case, this would be %COOLDLL%.

UNetWeaver

Possibly the most common example of an external program would be the use of Unity's UNetWeaver for networking. See this page to learn more.

If you are using a .bat file, make sure you call it before you perform other post build actions in your IDE, or the post build will for some reason stop at the .bat 

call weaver.bat

copy /Y "$(TargetPath)" "$(SolutionPath)Builds\"
rem the rest of your commands

Conditionals

Batch has for, if and probably more go google! Batch does not have conditional operators, but there are some implementations for or and and

Or 

set result=false
if %a% == 1 set result=true
if %b% == 1 set result=true
if "%result%" == "true" (
    do something
)
and 
if %a% == 1 (
    if %b% == 1 (
        do something
    )
)

Macros

  • $(OutDir) is the folder to which your dll is outputted. This path ends in a \.
  • $(ConfigurationName) is the configuration under which you've chosen to build under. By default this is set to "Debug", and a "Release" configuration is available. NOTE: sometimes this does not work and you need to use $(Configuration) instead.
  • $(ProjectName) is the name of your project.
  • $(TargetName) is the name of the output dll, excluding the .dll part.
  • $(TargetPath) is the absolute path to your output dll, including the .dll part.
  • $(ProjectPath) is the absolute path to your project file, including the .csproj part.
  • $(ProjectFileName) is the file name of the project, usually ending in .csproj
  • $(TargetDir) is the absolute path to the folder your dll will be placed in. This path ends in a \.
  • $(ProjectDir) is the absolute path to the folder that contains your project file. This path ends in a \.
  • $(SolutionFileName) is the filename of your solution, which contains all your projects. this file usually ends in in .sln.
  • $(SolutionPath) is the absolute path to your solution file. Ending in .sln.
  • $(SolutionName) is your solution name, excluding the .sln part.
  • $(TargetExt), $(ProjectExt), and $(SolutionExt) will likely be .dll, .csproj, and .sln respectively.
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