[build] Passing a property (/property) with multiple values to msbuild isn't working

[evil-shrike]

I need to pass values for NoWarn option to C# compiler. Previously with msbuild it was being passed as property:

msbuild /p:NoWarn:"1591;1573;3001;3002"

But with dotnet cli it doesn't work anymore.
I tried both build and msbuild commands.

Steps to reproduce

dotnet.exe msbuild /property:NoWarn=1591;1573;3001;3002 mysolution.sln

or

dotnet.exe msbuild /property:NoWarn="1591;1573;3001;3002" mysolution.sln

or

dotnet.exe msbuild "/property:NoWarn=1591;1573;3001;3002" mysolution.sln

all result in

MSBUILD : error MSB1006: Property is not valid.
Switch: 1573

With dotnet.exe build` there's the same error.

While if I set these values in csproj:

<NoWarn>1591;1573;3001;3002</NoWarn>

it works as expected (warning are being ignored)

Expected behavior

Pass all warning code to the compiler.

Actual behavior

Faulting with an error

Environment data

dotnet --info output:

D:\>dotnet --info
.NET Command Line Tools (2.0.0)

Product Information:
 Version:            2.0.0
 Commit SHA-1 hash:  cdcd1928c9

Runtime Environment:
 OS Name:     Windows
 OS Version:  10.0.15063
 OS Platform: Windows
 RID:         win10-x64
 Base Path:   C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\2.0.0\

Microsoft .NET Core Shared Framework Host

  Version  : 2.0.0
  Build    : e8b8861ac7faf042c87a5c2f9f2d04c98b69f28d

[dasMulli]

As a workaround, you should be able to escape the ; character:

/property:NoWarn=1591%3B1573%3B3001%3B3002

[peterhuene]

@evil-shrike Thanks for reporting this issue! I have reproduced this and I have a fix that should work for your example without breaking the workaround @dasMulli provided. I'll put a PR up for it soon.

[peterhuene]

The fix is now in the release/2.1.4xx branch, which is slated to ship sometime after 2.1 is released (sorry, we're too close to shipping 2.1 to take a fix in that release).

Thanks again for reporting this issue to us!

[peterhuene]

@evil-shrike unfortunately the fix I made regressed the ability to define multiple properties with a single property option, e.g. /property:First=foo;Second=bar. See https://github.com/dotnet/cli/issues/9369.

After discussion with the MSBuild team, we've decided to revert the fix and request that users pass literal quotes on the command line around the property's value to get the desired behavior. See this comment here for the decision that was previously made for MSBuild on .NET Core.

So to do what you want, you'll need to pass literal double quotes through to MSBuild. On most macOS/Linux shells, this can be accomplished by using single quotes surrounding the double quoted value:

dotnet msbuild /p:NoWarn='"1591;1573;3001;3002"'

The single quotes will treat both the double quotes and semicolons as literal values, so no need to escape either.

On Windows, you'll need to use escaped double quotes:

dotnet msbuild /p:NoWarn=\"1591;1573;3001;3002\"

Thanks!

[iskiselev]

Escaping with %3B at least on cmd will be treated differently and be passed inside msbuild as %3B, which may not work correct after it (see example in dotnet/cli#10282).
I still do not fully understand, why msbuild do not require additional escaping, but same from dotnet CLI require it?
EDIT: I found an answer to my second question: msbuild parse raw command line, which include all quotas, but dontet CLI use parsed command line with arguments split, which removes single unescaped quotas.

[peterhuene]

@iskiselev that's indeed the case, which is why the quotes don't transfer through to MSBuild via dotnet.

It's an unfortunate side effect of the difference in how each parses command line options. An attempt for dotnet to do the "right thing" automatically is to use a heuristic on what they meant in the option (i.e. multiple properties being set vs. literal semicolons in a single property value). Not difficult to do, obviously, but it would force semantics on the option with no good way of "opting out". Thus, we decided on explicitness of escaped quotes as the reasonable option.

[Piedone]

Could you follow up under https://github.com/NuGet/docs.microsoft.com-nuget/issues/1948, please?

[JohnGalt1717]

This is also an issue iwth the -p:ContainerImageTags=latest;{githubid} It blows up on windows and linux and no escaping works (you can't puse the ; escaped character it just does crazy stuff.