failed pre-build event in visual studio 2010 cancels build

Question

I have a python script which runs and generates a version-file. I use the following as a pre-build event for my project:

call python version.py

this works fine given that I have python installed and the file can be found. However, for users that don't, it throws an error and cancels the build.

Is there a way to make it so the visual studio just silently ignores the build event if the python-command is not found or the python-file is not found?

Answer 1

One option would be to wrap the call to python in a .bat file which will exit with 0 if python is not found, and replace the pre-build step with calling this .bat file.

An example of such a test could be:

python --version >nul
if errorlevel 1 exit 0