Ncrunch does not copy empty folder to it's workspace.

we use prebuild event that copies files to a folder.
Folder exists in project and source control.
Project type is .netCore 2

Getting the below if folder is empty. If I add empty txt file, ncrunch builds fine.

C:\Users\daniel_simonavicius\AppData\Local\NCrunch\18332\23\Web\OGC.OCM.Web>xcopy C:\Users\daniel_simonavicius\AppData\Local\NCrunch\18332\23\Web\OGC.OCM.Web\App C:\Users\daniel_simonavicius\AppData\Local\NCrunch\18332\23\Web\OGC.OCM.Web\wwwroot /i /s /r /y /c /exclude:C:\Users\daniel_simonavicius\AppData\Local\NCrunch\18332\23\Web\OGC.OCM.Web\excludedfileslist.txt
File not found - App
0 File(s) copied

File not found - App
0 File(s) copied

Thanks, Daniel

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for sharing this problem. Could you clarify the purpose of this pre-build event? Is this trying to copy files from another project in your solution? If so, this may break NCrunch's project atomicity constraints.

Yes, it copies angular app into web project, but Ncrnch is only testing c# MVC side so it should build project as normal. Especially because it executes prebuild task fine once the folder exist...

Thanks.

Ahh, sorry I just realised I missed that the folder was empty. Yes, this would be a known constraint. NCrunch identifies file dependencies using MSBuild, so if there is no file in the folder, it won't be represented when the project is loaded.

The easiest way to work around this is to just add a step to the pre-build event that will create the missing folder if it doesn't exist, or otherwise make the step conditional on the folder existing.