Microsoft Build (msbuild) is a build system developed by Microsoft similar in spirit to Nant (in that it uses XML files for describing the build process) and in the same spirit as make.

Projects created in Visual Studio 2005 (except VC++2005) are saved in MSBuild format.

xbuild is Mono's implementation of msbuild and it allows projects that have an msbuild file to be compiled natively on Linux. xbuild has been part of the standard Mono distribution for some time now, but it is not 100% complete yet.

TODO List

• Implement functions for adding/removing elements from the project
  • Write tests for BuildProperty
• Resources generation (.resx -> .resources)
• PostBuildEvent (requires changing of Compile structure)
• Windows support (decide what to run and how)
• Condition fixes (still not stable):
  • Add support for few more grammar structures (functions)
• Better errors handling (ie no build succeeded when we got errors)
• Write NUnit tests for Microsoft.Build.Tasks
• Add support for solutions to xbuild
• Project to project references