CLI Tools: Error when MSBuildProjectExtensionsPath doesn't exist

[karabaja4]

Hello, I have trouble scaffolding an existing Sqlite database model when a separate netstandard1.6 class library is used as a DataLayer project and BaseIntermediateOutputPath is set to a different obj/ folder with --msbuildprojectextensionspath, as per example below:

---

Directory structure:

out/
  project.DataLayer/
    bin/
    obj/
  project.WebApp/
    bin/
    obj/
src/
  project.DataLayer/
    project.DataLayer.csproj
  project.WebApp/
    project.WebApp.csproj

projects.DataLayer.csproj

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>

    <TargetFramework>netstandard1.6</TargetFramework>

    <BaseOutputPath>../../out/$(AssemblyName)/bin</BaseOutputPath>
    <BaseIntermediateOutputPath>../../out/$(AssemblyName)/obj</BaseIntermediateOutputPath>

  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>

    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore" Version="1.1.2" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Sqlite" Version="1.1.2" />
    
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools" Version="1.1.1" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Sqlite.Design" Version="1.1.2" />
    <DotNetCliToolReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools.DotNet" Version="1.0.1" />
    
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

project.WebApp.csproj

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">

  <PropertyGroup>
  
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp1.1</TargetFramework>

    <BaseOutputPath>../../out/$(AssemblyName)/bin</BaseOutputPath>
    <BaseIntermediateOutputPath>../../out/$(AssemblyName)/obj</BaseIntermediateOutputPath>

  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
        *snip, irrelevant packages*
       <ProjectReference Include="..\project.Business\project.Business.csproj" /> // has reference to project.DataLayer
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

---

For the below commands I am positioned in project.DataLayer folder and I ran dotnet restore and dotnet build on all projects.

When I try to scaffold the database from /src/project.DataLayer with --msbuildprojectextensionspath pointing to /out/project.DataLayer/obj/:

dotnet ef dbcontext scaffold "Datasource=database.db" Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Sqlite --context "AppDbContext" --data-annotations --force --msbuildprojectextensionspath "C:\projects\out\project.DataLayer\obj" --project "C:\projects\src\project.DataLayer\project.DataLayer.csproj" --output-dir "C:\projects\src\project.DataLayer\Models\" --startup-project "C:\projects\src\project.WebApp\project.WebApp.csproj"

C:\projects\src\project.DataLayer\project.DataLayer.csproj : error MSB4057: The target "GetEFProjectMetadata" does not exist in the project.
Unable to retrieve project metadata. Ensure it's an MSBuild-based .NET Core project. If you're using custom BaseIntermediateOutputPath or MSBuildProjectExtensionsPath values, Use the --msbuildprojectextensionspath option.

I get this error, but, if I remove BaseOutputPath and BaseIntermediateOutputPath from both csprojs (then the bin/ and obj/ folders are created in the /src/project.DataLayer folder after dotnet restore and dotnet build) and execute the following command from that folder:

dotnet ef dbcontext scaffold "Datasource=database.db" Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Sqlite --context "AppDbContext" --data-annotations --force --output-dir  "C:\projects\src\project.DataLayer\Models" --startup-project "C:\projects\src\project.WebApp\project.WebApp.csproj"

Build succeeded.
0 Warning(s)
0 Error(s)
Time Elapsed 00:00:12.48

then the command is executed successfully and the model is created.

Please note that Scaffold-DbContext works in VS2017 Package Manager Console when I pick project.DataLayer and execute scaffolding with the same configuration (/bin and /obj in separate directory).

EF Core version: 1.1.2
Database Provider: Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Sqlite
Operating system: Windows 10
IDE: Visual Studio Code / CLI Tools

[bricelam]

Hmm, there's definitely an issue here. To get it to work as it was intended, you'd have to author your *.csproj like this:

<Project>
  <PropertyGroup>
    <BaseIntermediateOutputPath>../../obj/$(MSBuildProjectName)/</BaseIntermediateOutputPath>
  </PropertyGroup>
  <Import Project="Sdk.props" Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk" />

  <!-- Typical content goes here. -->

  <Import Project="Sdk.targets" Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk" />
</Project>

For your scenario, not specifying --msbuildprojectextensionspath seems to work. Although you may have to manually create the obj\ folder so you don't get a could not find a part of the path error.

[bricelam]

Triage, I think we have two options here:

1. Keep everything as is, but create the directory if it doesn't exist.
2. Flow MSBuildProjectExtensionsPath into MSBuild so it can be set before it's defaulted to the value of BaseIntermediateOutputPath.

[karabaja4]

Yeah, I succeeded to scaffold it by manually creating obj/ folder in projects roots and not specifying --msbuildprojectextensionpath. Unfortunately this defeats the purpose of having a separate obj/ folder if another one now exists in the project root.

I tried to modify the csprojs as you suggested. However I was still unsuccessful in using --msbuildprojectextensionpath. First, I ran the restore and build on modified csprojs. This caused a bunch of warnings:

C:\projects\src\project.DataLayer.csproj(10,3): warning MSB4011: "C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\1.0.4\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\Sdk\Sdk.props" cannot be imported again. It was already imported at "C:\projects\src\project.DataLayer\project.DataLayer.csproj". This is most likely a build authoring error. This subsequent import will be ignored.

This also created the folder as specified in the csproj: ../../obj/project.DataLayer.

I pointed --msbuildprojectextensionpath to ../../obj/. I still got:

C:\projects\src\project.DataLayer\project.DataLayer.csproj : error MSB4057: The target "GetEFProjectMetadata" does not exist in the project.
Unable to retrieve project metadata. Ensure it's an MSBuild-based .NET Core project. If you're using custom BaseIntermediateOutputPath or MSBuildProjectExtensionsPath values, Use the --msbuildprojectextensionspath option.

Did I misconfigure something? Thanks.

[bricelam]

It sounds like you left the Sdk attribute on the root Project element.

[karabaja4]

Yeah, sorry. Tinkering with csprojs at 3AM wasn't a good idea. The error remains however, except no warnings this time.

Since I spent way too much time playing with this I'll just leave bin/ and obj/ inside root for now. Thanks for your help.

[bricelam]

We decided to go with option 1: Keep everything as is, but create the directory if it doesn't exist.

That fact that dotnet/sdk (or maybe it's Microsoft/msbuild) makes it difficult to override the value of BaseIntermediateOutputPath before it is used as the default value of MSBuildProjectExtensionsPath shouldn't be addressed by a feature in EF. I believe dotnet restore would also continue putting things under obj/ with the project as it was.