How concatenate files in MSBuild and preserve tabs and spaces
msbuild, msbuild-task
Solution
This is what I ended up with when faced with the same problem:
<Target Name="ConcatenateScripts">
<!-- List all the files you want to concatenate. -->
<ItemGroup>
<ConcatFiles Include="
Scripts\ApplicationModule.d.ts;
Scripts\AccountModule.d.ts;
Scripts\FeedModule.d.ts;"/>
</ItemGroup>
<!-- Read the contents of the files (preserving tabs/spaces). -->
<ItemGroup>
<FileContents Include="$([System.IO.File]::ReadAllText(%(ConcatFiles.Identity)))"/>
</ItemGroup>
<!-- Write the result to a single file. -->
<WriteLinesToFile File="Scripts\ApplicationDefinition.d.ts" Lines="@(FileContents)" Overwrite="true" />
</Target>
<!-- Concatenate scripts on AfterBuild. -->
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<CallTarget Targets="ConcatenateScripts"/>
</Target>
This is a modified version of this blog post but using `$([System.IO.File]::ReadAllText(...)` instead of the `ReadLinesFromFile` task, as suggested in this answer.
Problem
I'm trying to concatenate a few files during my build but the way I tried strips out the tabs and spaces leaving the output unformatted. ``` <CreateItem Include="Scripts\ApplicationModule.d.ts; Scripts\AccountModule.d.ts; Scripts\FeedModule.d.ts;"> <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="ApplicationDefinitionFiles" /> </CreateItem> <ReadLinesFromFile File="%(ApplicationDefinitionFiles.FullPath)"> <Output TaskParameter="Lines" ItemName="ApplicationDefinitionLines" /> </ReadLinesFromFile> <WriteLinesToFile File="Scripts\ApplicationDefinition.d.ts" Lines="@(ApplicationDefinitionLines)" Overwrite="true" /> ``` What's the way to preserve formatting?