MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj 2.6.1

MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj

Introduction

An MSBuild SDK that is capable of producing a SQL Server Data-Tier Application package (.dacpac) from a set of SQL scripts that can be subsequently deployed using the Microsoft.SqlPackage dotnet tool. It provides much of the same functionality as the SQL Server Data Tools .sqlproj project format, but is built on top of the new SDK-style projects that were first introduced in Visual Studio 2017.

If you're looking for a video introduction, please watch this dotnetFlix episode. For some more background on this project read the following blogposts:

• Introducing MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj
• An update on MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj

Code of conduct

Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the code of conduct for this repository.

Usage

The simplest way to get started is to install our templates with dotnet new using:

dotnet new --install MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj.Templates

You can then create a new project file using the following command:

dotnet new sqlproj

If you don't want to target the latest version of SQL Server, you can specify a version to target using the -s Sql<version> switch.

See How to determine the version, edition, and update level of SQL Server and its components to map from the SQL Server SKU name to the version number, e.g. SQL Server 2016 to 13.0.

See SqlServerVersion Enum to map from the SQL Server version number to the SqlServerVersion needed by the template and project file, e.g. 13.0 to Sql130.

dotnet new sqlproj -s Sql130

You should now have a project file with the following contents:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework>
        <SqlServerVersion>Sql130</SqlServerVersion>
        
    </PropertyGroup>

    <PropertyGroup>
        
    </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

Then run a dotnet build and you'll find a .dacpac file with the same name as your project file in the bin\Debug\netstandard2.0 folder. If you want to change the name of the .dacpac file you can set the <TargetName> property in your project file to something else.

Note: For PackageReferences this SDK currently assumes that the .dacpac file has the same name as the package. If you plan to create a NuGet package out of your project (see below) then make sure that <TargetName> matches the ID of your package.

Note: Ensure you do not change the TargetFramework element from netstandard2.0 to anything else. Otherwise you will see errors like The "CopyRefAssembly" task was not given a value for the required parameter "SourcePath".

Editing the Project file

The project file can have extension .csproj or .fsproj.

All .sql files in the same directory as the project file, except for those in the Pre-Deployment and Post-Deployment folders, are added to the package by default.

To exclude files from the package, add a <Content Remove="Directory\File.sql" />.

If you are using Visual Studio, to make files excluded from the package appear in Solution Explorer (like scripts for Pre- and Post-Deployment), add <None Include="Directory\File.sql" />.

Wilcards cards are supported for all nodes (Content, None, etc.). For example, <None Include="Directory\**" />.

Item templates

To create database objects you can use the following item templates:

Note: In a future update of Visual Studio you should be able to use both the project template and the item templates directly from Visual Studio. This feature is currently in preview and some of our early testing has revealed that it doesn't work as expected. Stay tuned for updates on this.

If you already have a SSDT (.sqlproj) project in your solution, you can keep that as a "companion" project in order to enjoy the Visual Studio designer experience, as described in this blog post.

Model properties

There are a lot of properties that can be set on the model in the resulting .dacpac file which can be influenced by setting those properties in the project file using the same name. For example, the snippet below sets the RecoveryMode property to Simple:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework>
        <RecoveryMode>Simple</RecoveryMode>
        <SqlServerVersion>SqlAzure</SqlServerVersion>
    </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

Refer to the documentation for more details on the available properties. The SqlServerVersion property is also supported.

Note: If you are replacing an existing .sqlproj be sure to copy over any of these properties into the new project file.

Model compiler options

Like .sqlproj projects MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj supports controlling T-SQL build errors and warnings by using MSBuild properties. Treating warnings as errors can be optionally enabled by adding a property TreatTSqlWarningsAsErrors to the project file:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <TreatTSqlWarningsAsErrors>True</TreatTSqlWarningsAsErrors>
        ...
    </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

Note: Alternatively one can use TreatWarningsAsErrors instead of TreatTSqlWarningsAsErrors to apply the same effect.

To suppress specific warnings from being treated as errors, add a comma-separated list of warning codes to SuppressTSqlWarnings property in the project file:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <SuppressTSqlWarnings>71558,71502</SuppressTSqlWarnings>
        <TreatTSqlWarningsAsErrors>True</TreatTSqlWarningsAsErrors>
        ...
    </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

You can suppress warnings for a specific file by adding SuppressTSqlWarnings for this file:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        ...
    </PropertyGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
        <Content Include="Procedures\csp_Test.sql">
            <SuppressTSqlWarnings>71502</SuppressTSqlWarnings>
        </Content>
    </ItemGroup>
</Project>

Note: Warnings suppressed at the project level are always applied to every file in the project, regardless of what is configured at the file level.

Pre- and post deployment scripts

Support for pre- and post deployment scripts has been added in version 1.1.0. These scripts will be automatically executed when deploying the .dacpac to SQL Server.

To include these scripts into your .dacpac add the following to your .csproj:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        ...
    </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <PostDeploy Include="Post-Deployment\Script.PostDeployment.sql" />
    <PreDeploy Include="Pre-Deployment\Script.PreDeployment.sql" />
  </ItemGroup>
</Project>

It is important to note that scripts in the Pre-Deployment and Post-Deployment folders are excluded from the build process by default. This is because these scripts typically don't define database objects, such as tables and stored procedure, but perform other tasks that cannot be represented in the model. If these aren't excluded your build might break with a SQL46010 error. Instead, you should create a script file that includes all of those scripts using the :r <path-to-script>.sql syntax and then reference that script in your project file (as shown above).

By default the pre- and/or post-deployment script of referenced packages (both PackageReference and ProjectReference) are not run when using dotnet publish. As of version 1.11.0 this can be optionally enabled by adding a property RunScriptsFromReferences to the project file as in the below example:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <RunScriptsFromReferences>True</RunScriptsFromReferences>
        ...
    </PropertyGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
      <PackageReference Include="MyDatabasePackage" Version="1.0.0" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Project>

SQLCMD variables

Especially when using pre- and post deployment scripts, but also in other scenario's, it might be useful to define variables that can be controlled at deployment time. This is supported through the use of SQLCMD variables, added in version 1.1.0. These variables can be defined in your project file using the following syntax:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        ...
    </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <SqlCmdVariable Include="MySqlCmdVariable">
      <DefaultValue>DefaultValue</DefaultValue>
      <Value>$(SqlCmdVar__1)</Value>
    </SqlCmdVariable>
    <SqlCmdVariable Include="MySqlCmdVariable2">
      <DefaultValue>DefaultValue</DefaultValue>
      <Value>$(SqlCmdVar__2)</Value>
    </SqlCmdVariable>
  </ItemGroup>
</Project>

Note: In versions prior to 1.11.0 the DefaultValue element displayed above was not used. As of version 1.11.0 the value of Value is checked first and if it found to be empty we'll fall back to DefaultValue.

Package references

MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj supports referencing NuGet packages that contain .dacpac packages. These can be referenced by using the PackageReference format familiar to .NET developers. They can also be installed through the NuGet Package Manager in Visual Studio.

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
        <PackageReference Include="MyDatabasePackage" Version="1.1.0" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Project>

It will assume that the .dacpac file is inside the tools folder of the referenced package and that it has the same name as the NuGet package. Referenced packages that do not adhere to this convention will be silently ignored. However, you have the ability to override this convention by using the DacpacName attribute on the PackageReference (introduced in version 2.5.0). For example:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework>
        <SqlServerVersion>Sql160</SqlServerVersion>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
        <PackageReference Include="MyDatabasePackage" Version="1.1.0" DacpacName="SomeOtherDatabase" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Project>

This will add a reference to the tools\SomeOtherDatabase.dacpac file inside the MyDatabasePackage package. Note that if that file doesn't exist within the package, the package reference will still be silently ignored. However the build will most likely fail if your project actually references objects from the reference package.

By default the package reference is treated as being part of the same database. For example, if the reference package contains a .dacpac that has a table and a stored procedure and you would dotnet publish the project the table and stored procedure from that package will be deployed along with the contents of your project to the same database. If this is not desired, you can add the DatabaseVariableLiteralValue item metadata to the PackageReference specifying a different database name:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
        <PackageReference Include="MyDatabasePackage" Version="1.1.0" DatabaseVariableLiteralValue="SomeOtherDatabase" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Project>

In this scenario you can access the objects defined by MyDatabasePackage by using the [SomeOtherDatabase].[<schema>].[<object>] syntax.

You can also use SQLCMD variables to set references, similar to the behavior of a .sqlproj project, by adding DatabaseSqlCmdVariable and optionally ServerSqlCmdVariable item metadata to the PackageReference element:

Note: Don't forget to define appropriate SQLCMD variables

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
        <PackageReference Include="MyDatabasePackage" Version="1.1.0" DatabaseSqlCmdVariable="SomeOtherDatabase" ServerSqlCmdVariable="SomeOtherServer"/>
    </ItemGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <SqlCmdVariable Include="SomeOtherDatabase">
      <DefaultValue>OtherDatabase</DefaultValue>
      <Value>$(SqlCmdVar__1)</Value>
    </SqlCmdVariable>
    <SqlCmdVariable Include="SomeOtherServer">
      <DefaultValue>OtherServer</DefaultValue>
      <Value>$(SqlCmdVar__2)</Value>
    </SqlCmdVariable>
  </ItemGroup>
</Project>

In this scenario you can access the objects defined by MyDatabasePackage by using the [$(SomeOtherServer)].[$(SomeOtherDatabase)].[<schema>].[<object>] syntax. Also you can combine ServerSqlCmdVariable with DatabaseVariableLiteralValue and use [$(SomeOtherServer)].[SomeOtherDatabase].[<schema>].[<object>] syntax.

When deploying a dacpac with references to other dacpacs, if you want the contents of all dacpacs to be deployed to a single database you will need to specify the IncludeCompositeObjects property. For example:

sqlpackage
    /Action:Publish \
    /SourceFile:MyDatabase.dacpac \
    /TargetServerName:localhost \
    /TargetDatabaseName:MyDatabase \
    /TargetUser:sa \
    /TargetPassword: MyP@ssword \
    /Properties:IncludeCompositeObjects=True

Referencing system databases

Microsoft has recently released NuGet packages containing the definitions of the master and msdb databases. This is useful if you want to reference objects from those databases within your own projects without getting warnings. To reference these, you'll need to use at least version 2.5.0 of MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj as you'll need to use the DacpacName feature for package references described above. For example:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework>
        <SqlServerVersion>160</SqlServerVersion>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
        <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.SqlServer.Dacpacs" Version="160.0.0" DacpacName="master" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Project>

The above example references the master database from the Microsoft.SqlServer.Dacpacs NuGet package. Please note that there are different versions of that package for different versions of SQL Server. It is recommended to reference the same version of the package as the SqlServerVersion you are targeting with your project, as seen in the example above.

For the Azure SQL and Synapse variants of SQL Server there are dedicated packages: Microsoft.SqlServer.Dacpacs.Azure and Microsoft.SqlServer.Dacpacs.Synapse respectively.

Project references

Similar to package references you can also reference another project by using a ProjectReference. These references can be added manually to the project file or they can be added through Visual Studio. For example, consider the following example:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
        <ProjectReference Include="../MyOtherProject/MyOtherProject.csproj" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Project>

This will ensure that MyOtherProject is built first and the resulting .dacpac will be referenced by this project. This means you can use the objects defined in the other project within the scope of this project. If the other project is representing an entirely different database you can also use DatabaseVariableLiteralValue or SQLCMD variables on the ProjectReference similar to PackageReference:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
        <ProjectReference Include="../MyOtherProject/MyOtherProject.csproj" DatabaseVariableLiteralValue="SomeOtherDatabase" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <ItemGroup>
        <ProjectReference Include="../MySecondProject/MySecondProject.csproj" DatabaseSqlCmdVariable="SecondOtherDatabase" ServerSqlCmdVariable="SomeOtherServer" />
    </ItemGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <SqlCmdVariable Include="SecondOtherDatabase">
      <DefaultValue>SecondDatabase</DefaultValue>
      <Value>$(SqlCmdVar__1)</Value>
    </SqlCmdVariable>
    <SqlCmdVariable Include="SomeOtherServer">
      <DefaultValue>OtherServer</DefaultValue>
      <Value>$(SqlCmdVar__2)</Value>
    </SqlCmdVariable>
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

Note: We do not support adding a ProjectReference to an existing .sqlproj file.

Circular References and SuppressMissingDependenciesErrors

In order to solve circular references between databases that may have been incorrectly setup, it is possible to add SuppressMissingDependenciesErrors to both Package References and ProjectReferences):

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
        <PackageReference Include="MyDatabasePackage" Version="1.1.0" DatabaseVariableLiteralValue="SomeDatabase" SuppressMissingDependenciesErrors="True"/>
    </ItemGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
        <ProjectReference Include="../MyOtherProject/MyOtherProject.csproj" DatabaseVariableLiteralValue="SomeOtherDatabase" SuppressMissingDependenciesErrors="True"/>
    </ItemGroup>
</Project>

Packaging support

MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj supports packaging your project into a NuGet package using the dotnet pack command. In order for this to work, you'll need to add a .nuspec file next to your project file with the same name. For example, if your .csproj is called TestProject.csproj you'll need to add a TestProject.nuspec file in the same folder. Fill this file with the following contents and replace the placeholder with the appropriate value:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<package xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2011/10/nuspec.xsd">
  <metadata>
    <id>$id$</id>
    <version>$version$</version>
    <description>$description$</description>
    <authors>$authors$</authors>
    <owners>$authors$</owners>
    <copyright>$copyright$</copyright>
    <projectUrl>$projecturl$</projectUrl>
    <tags>$tags$</tags>
    <packageTypes>
      <packageType name="$packagetype$" />
    </packageTypes>
    <repository type="git" url="<repository-url>" />
  </metadata>
  <files>
    <file src="bin\$configuration$\$tfm$\*.dacpac" target="tools/" />
  </files>
</package>

Note: The above .nuspec file will result in a package that includes the .dacpac of the project as well as any referenced .dacpac file's (those from PackageReference). This is by design since you'll probably need those later on when deploying the .dacpac. If you want to only include the .dacpac of the project replace *.dacpac with $id$.dacpac.

Additionally you'll need to set the PackageProjectUrl property inside of the .csproj like this:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.0.0">
  <PropertyGroup>
    ...
    <PackageProjectUrl>your-project-url</PackageProjectUrl>
  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

Other metadata for the package can be controlled by using the documented properties in your project file.

Packaging standalone dacpacs

If you have an already-compiled .dacpac file without a corresponding .csproj that you need to reference as a PackageReference, you can use existing NuGet functionality to wrap the dacpac in a NuGet package. To do that, create a .nuspec file referencing your dacpac:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<package xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2011/10/nuspec.xsd">
  <metadata>
    <id>your-dacpac-name</id>
    <version>your-version-number</version>
    <description>your-description</description>
    <authors>your-author</authors>
    <owners>your-owner</owners>
    <packageTypes>
      <packageType name="dacpac" />
    </packageTypes>
  </metadata>
  <files>
    <file src="fileName.dacpac" target="tools/" />
  </files>
</package>

To create the package, run:

nuget pack fileName.nuspec

Then push the package to your local NuGet repository:

nuget push fileName.version.nupkg -Source /your/nuget/repo/path

You can now reference your dacpac as a PackageReference!

Note: To run these commands, you'll need to have the NuGet CLI tools installed. See these installation instructions. If you use Chocolatey, you can also install by running choco install nuget.commandline. On a Mac with Homebrew installed, use brew install nuget.

Publishing support

Starting with version 1.2.0 of MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj there is support for publishing a project to a SQL Server using the dotnet publish command. This support is designed to be used by developers to deploy or update their local development database quickly. For more advanced deployment scenario's we suggest using SqlPackage instead as it provides more options.

There are a couple of properties that control the deployment process which have some defaults to make the experience as smooth as possible for local development. For example, on Windows if you have a default SQL Server instance running on your local machine running dotnet publish creates a database with the same name as the project. Unfortunately on Mac and Linux we cannot use Windows authentication, so you'll need to specify a username and password:

dotnet publish /p:TargetUser=<username> /p:TargetPassword=<password>

To further customize the deployment process, you can use the following properties which can either be set in the project file or specified on the command line (using the /p:<property>=<value> syntax shown above).

IMPORTANT: Although you can set the username and password in your project file we don't recommend doing so since you'll be committing credentials to version control. Instead you should specify these at the command line when needed.

In addition to these properties, you can also set any of the documented deployment options. These are typically set in the project file, for example:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
    <PropertyGroup>
        ...
        <BackupDatabaseBeforeChanges>True</BackupDatabaseBeforeChanges>
        <BlockOnPossibleDataLoss>True</BlockOnPossibleDataLoss>
        ...
    </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

Most of those properties are simple values (like booleans, strings and integers), but there are a couple of properties that require more complex values:

Script generation

Instead of using dotnet publish to deploy changes to a database, you can also have a full SQL script generated that will create the database from scratch and then run that script against a SQL Server. This can be achieved by adding the following to the project file:

<Project Sdk="MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj/2.5.0">
  <PropertyGroup>
      <GenerateCreateScript>True</GenerateCreateScript>
      <IncludeCompositeObjects>True</IncludeCompositeObjects>
  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

With this enabled you'll find a SQL script with the name <database-name>_Create.sql in the bin folder. The database name for the create script gets resolved in the following manner:

1. TargetDatabaseName.
2. Package name.

Note:

• the generated script also uses the resolved database name via a setvar command.
• if IncludeCompositeObjects is true, the composite objects (tables, etc.) from external references are also included in the generated script. This property defaults to true

Workaround for parser errors (SQL46010)

This project relies on the publicly available T-SQL parser which may not support all T-SQL syntax constructions. Therefore you might encounter a SQL46010 error if you have a script file that contains unsupported syntax. If that happens, there's a couple of workarounds you can try:

1. Exclude the file from the build entirely by changing its build action to None.
2. Move the offending script to the pre- and/or post-deployment scripts.
3. Use dynamic SQL instead, like this:

DECLARE @Query NVARCHAR(MAX) = '<your-script>'
EXEC (@Query)

Reference MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj from class library

The output of MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj is not an assembly, but a .dacpac. In order to correctly reference a MSBuild.Sdk.SqlProj based project from a class library, the ReferenceOutputAssembly hint needs to be set to False:

<ItemGroup>
    <ProjectReference
      Include="../MyDacpacProj/MyDacpacProj.csproj"
      ReferenceOutputAssembly="False" />
</ItemGroup>

Now, upon compilation of the class library, the relevant .dacpac files get copied to the output directory.

Known limitations

Since this is not an entire project system but only an MSBuild SDK we cannot provide IntelliSense for objects defined within the project. This limitation can be circumvented by connecting the SQL editor to a live database that is used for development purposes.

The SQL Server Data Tools also includes a static code analysis feature. Currently this is not (yet) available when using this SDK.