dotnet/msbuild

Show warning when referencing an Item as a Property or viceversa

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#348 opened on Nov 13, 2015

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 (4 comments) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)C# (1,364 forks)batch import
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Description

If you have an item foo but you forget it's an item and you reference it as a property ($(foo)), then MSBuild will just evaluate it to an empty string. This adds to the time it takes to debug the build.

To make debugging easier, MSBuild should emit a warning: "You are referencing the item foo as a property".

Contributor guide

Research direction
Locate where properties and items are evaluated in MSBuild's parser and add a warning if an item name is used as a property reference.
Tech stack
csharp
Domain
build system
Issue type
Feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
2
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-2 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Clear
Prerequisites
C#
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
40