Inside the Microsoft® Build Engine: Using MSBuild and Team Foundation Build

Item Metadata

Another difference between properties and items is that items can have metadata associated with them. When you create an item, each of its elements is a full-fledged .NET object, which can have a set of values (metadata) associated with it. The metadata that is available on every item, known as well-known metadata, is summarized in Table 1-2.

Table 1-2. Well-Known Metadata

Name	Description
Identity	The value that was specified in the Include attribute of the item after it was evaluated.
FullPath	Full path of the file.
Rootdir	The root directory to which the file belongs.
Filename	The name of the file, not including the extension.
Extension	The extension of the file, including the ‘.’.
RelativeDir	The path to the file relative to the current working ...