[build] Passing a property (/property) with multiple values to msbuild isn't working

I need to pass values for NoWarn option to C# compiler. Previously with msbuild it was being passed as property:

msbuild /p:NoWarn:"1591;1573;3001;3002"

But with dotnet cli it doesn’t work anymore. I tried both build and msbuild commands.

Steps to reproduce

dotnet.exe msbuild /property:NoWarn=1591;1573;3001;3002 mysolution.sln

or

dotnet.exe msbuild /property:NoWarn="1591;1573;3001;3002" mysolution.sln

or

dotnet.exe msbuild "/property:NoWarn=1591;1573;3001;3002" mysolution.sln

all result in

MSBUILD : error MSB1006: Property is not valid.
Switch: 1573

With dotnet.exe build` there’s the same error.

While if I set these values in csproj:

<NoWarn>1591;1573;3001;3002</NoWarn>

it works as expected (warning are being ignored)

Expected behavior

Pass all warning code to the compiler.

Actual behavior

Faulting with an error

Environment data

dotnet --info output:

D:\>dotnet --info
.NET Command Line Tools (2.0.0)

Product Information:
 Version:            2.0.0
 Commit SHA-1 hash:  cdcd1928c9

Runtime Environment:
 OS Name:     Windows
 OS Version:  10.0.15063
 OS Platform: Windows
 RID:         win10-x64
 Base Path:   C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\2.0.0\

Microsoft .NET Core Shared Framework Host

  Version  : 2.0.0
  Build    : e8b8861ac7faf042c87a5c2f9f2d04c98b69f28d

[peterhuene]

@evil-shrike unfortunately the fix I made regressed the ability to define multiple properties with a single property option, e.g. /property:First=foo;Second=bar. See https://github.com/dotnet/cli/issues/9369.

After discussion with the MSBuild team, we’ve decided to revert the fix and request that users pass literal quotes on the command line around the property’s value to get the desired behavior. See this comment here for the decision that was previously made for MSBuild on .NET Core.

So to do what you want, you’ll need to pass literal double quotes through to MSBuild. On most macOS/Linux shells, this can be accomplished by using single quotes surrounding the double quoted value:

dotnet msbuild /p:NoWarn='"1591;1573;3001;3002"'

The single quotes will treat both the double quotes and semicolons as literal values, so no need to escape either.

On Windows, you’ll need to use escaped double quotes:

dotnet msbuild /p:NoWarn=\"1591;1573;3001;3002\"

Thanks!

[peterhuene]

The fix is now in the release/2.1.4xx branch, which is slated to ship sometime after 2.1 is released (sorry, we’re too close to shipping 2.1 to take a fix in that release).

Thanks again for reporting this issue to us!