MSBuild Copy fails with a strange error message

Question

I'm stuck completely and need your help )))

MSVS cross-platform toolchain contains an msbuild script named Android.Common.targets, which has a target named CopyAntPackageContentToOutput, and the thing is that when this script executes (during Marmalade SDK native debug build) - Copy task fails to move a number of .jar files to an intermediate directory and prints:

Task Parameter:
1>                         SourceFiles=
1>                             c:\code\projects\develop+jf\marmalade\extensions\nsfirebase\sdk\libs\android\firebase-messaging-cpp\classes.jar
1>                                     CopyToOutputDirectory=Always
1>                                     Link=libs\classes.jar
1>                                     OriginalItemSpec=c:\code\projects\develop+jf\marmalade\extensions\nsfirebase\sdk\libs\android\firebase-messaging-cpp\classes.jar
1>                                     TargetPath=libs\classes.jar
1>                             c:\code\projects\develop+jf\marmalade\extensions\androidsupport\sdk\support-core-ui\classes.jar
1>                                     CopyToOutputDirectory=Always
1>                                     Link=libs\classes.jar
1>                                     OriginalItemSpec=c:\code\projects\develop+jf\marmalade\extensions\androidsupport\sdk\support-core-ui\classes.jar
1>                                     TargetPath=libs\classes.jar

(... and so on, had to cut the log a bit)

And then the error message:

1>C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\MDD\Android\V140\Android.Common.targets(344,5): error MSB3094: "DestinationFiles" refers to 1 item(s), and "SourceFiles" refers to 39 item(s). They must have the same number of items.

I get that msbuild probably fails because I have multiple .jar files with the same name classes.jar, but how do I fix that without renaming the files?

Answer 1

but how do I fix that without renaming the files?

It seems the problem is that SourceFiles contains multiple files but copy to the one destination.

Since you do not want to rename the source files, you can try to modify the copy target CopyAntPackageContentToOutput not to copy to the same folder by using a recursive copy:

<Target Name="CopyFiles">  
    <Copy  
        SourceFiles="@(MySourceFiles)"  
        DestinationFiles="@(MySourceFiles->'c:\MyDestinationTree\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)')"  
    />  
</Target>  

Source: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/3e54c37h.aspx

See the similar issue for some more info.

Hope this helps.