How do I view the metaproj files generated by Visual Studio when building an ASP.NET website?

Question

I have a fairly large solution with a mix of assemblies and ASP.NET websites (the ones without a csproj file). I'm trying to customize the build from the command line, and so I need to understand what exactly MSBuild is doing.

When MSBuild builds .sln file, I see that it creates metaproj files (which I assume are MSBuild files). However, they never seem to appear on the file system. I assume that MSBuild keeps them hidden in some way. Is there a way that I can view these files?

Answer 1

使用以下环境变量：

set MSBuildEmitSolution=1

Answer 2

Some "under the hood" basics for Web Site projects that gets lost the way MS organizes their docs...

When MSBuild is executed on a .sln file it generates a .metaproj file based off of the "Project" section in the .sln file. It then executes aspnet_compiler.exe against the metaproj file.