I'm having a path issue.
- Is there a way for me to access the remote command line for my build instance? It sure would help me debug this scenario.
- I can't repro the The system cannot find the path specified message locally. Does VSTS validate paths specified as arguments in a build task?
- Is there a better approach for running a build artifact with a command line argument that is the path to a file it will use?
-----My scenario-----
I've got a build definition task that successfully publishes an artifact called metadatapreprocessor.exe to the artifacts location. Here's what the publish to artifacts task looks like:
Task 1 - publish executable to artifacts location (success)
Path to Publish:
Task#1: $(Build.SourcesDirectory)/MetadataPreprocessorRunner/bin/Debug/MetadataPreprocessor.exe
Artifact Name: MetadataPreprocessor
I've got a command line task to run the artifact named MetadataPreprocessor.exe:
Task 2 - run the executable in artifacts staging area with input file (fail)
Tool:
$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)\MetadataPreprocessor\MetadataPreprocessor.exe
Arguments: --MetadataRelativePathFromFileSystem=$(Build.SourcesDirectory)\submodules\Graph_Metadata\input_metadata.xml
It appears that I'm properly referencing the executable in the staging area as I'd expect to a see MetadataPreprocessor.exe is not recognized as an internal or external command... if I wasn't finding that executable.
You are publishing the files to the server, so it isn’t in the artifact folder ($(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)), that’s why it can’t find the path specified.
You can add Copy Files task to copy the files from sources directory to artifact folder. (Source Folder:
$(Build.SourcesDirectory); Contents:**\MetadataPreprocessor.exe; Target Folder:$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)).