recursivedirattribute

How does the ""RecursiveDir"" attribute work?

The ""RecursiveDir"" item attribute is set automatically by the ""MSBuild"" engine for any item that was expanded from a recursive wildcard syntax "*" in the project file. The value of ""RecursiveDir"" will be equivalent to the path to the file, beginning at the location of the "*". For example, suppose you had the following directory structure:

		 c:\
		     [MSBuild\]
		         Team\
		             Brett.txt
		             Chris\
		                 Rajeev.txt
		                 Sumedh.txt
		                 Jomo.txt
		                 Lukasz.txt
		             Rob\
		                 Dan.txt
		                 Victor.txt
		                 Jeff.txt
		             Chad\
		                 Alex.txt
		                 Kieran.txt
		     Editor\
		         subdirE\
		             whatever.txt
		         subdirF\
		             whichever.txt
		     IDE\
		         subdirG\
		             however.txt

and you wrote the following project file :

		 <Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
		     [<ItemGroup>]
		         <Areas Include="c:\MSBuild\**\*.txt" />
		     [</ItemGroup>]

		     <Target Name="Build">
		         <Message Text="FullPath				RecursiveDir"/>
		         <Message Text="========				============"/>
		         <Message Text="@(Areas->'%(FullPath)    	[%(RecursiveDir)',] '&amp;#13;&amp;#10;')"/>
		     </Target>
		 </Project>

then you would end up with this output:

		 Target "Build" in project "testrecursion.proj"
		    [FullPath]                             [RecursiveDir]
		    ========                             ============
		    [c:\MSBuild\Team\Brett.txt]            Team\
		    [c:\MSBuild\Team\Chad\Alex.txt]        Team\Chad\
		    [c:\MSBuild\Team\Chad\Kieran.txt]      Team\Chad\
		    [c:\MSBuild\Team\Chris\Jomo.txt]       Team\Chris\
		    [c:\MSBuild\Team\Chris\Lukasz.txt]     Team\Chris\
		    [c:\MSBuild\Team\Chris\Rajeev.txt]     Team\Chris\
		    [c:\MSBuild\Team\Chris\Sumedh.txt]     Team\Chris\
		    [c:\MSBuild\Team\Rob\Dan.txt]          Team\Rob\
		    [c:\MSBuild\Team\Rob\Jeff.txt]         Team\Rob\
		    [c:\MSBuild\Team\Rob\Victor.txt]       Team\Rob\