Missing PublishDir from Microsoft.Build.CommonTypes.xsd

[danmoseley]

When you publish an app through VS (at least in some paths), it writes a FolderProfile.pubxml. I guess it is imported into the build. If you open that to look at it or edit it you will get a warning in VS

Severity	Code	Description	Project	File	Line	Suppression State
Warning		The element 'PropertyGroup' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003' has invalid child element 'PublishDir' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'. List of possible elements expected: 'Property, VisualStudioVersion, MinimumVisualStudioVersion, ........ etc etc, ....	ConsoleApp9	C:\Users\danmose\source\repos\ConsoleApp9\ConsoleApp9\Properties\PublishProfiles\FolderProfile.pubxml	9	

Here is an example of a FolderProfile.pubxml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--
https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=208121. 
-->
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <Configuration>Release</Configuration>
    <Platform>Any CPU</Platform>
    <PublishDir>bin\Release\netcoreapp3.1\publish\</PublishDir>
    <PublishProtocol>FileSystem</PublishProtocol>

  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

I am not sure whether there are other properties it might include, but we should add PublishDir and PublishProtocol to Microsoft.Build.CommonTypes.xsd so they don't cause this disconcerting warning which will discourage anyone looking at the file.

[Forgind]

Team triage:

1. Why is a warning being emitted for a problem with an xsd?
2. We should have PublishDir and PublishProtocol in the xsd.

[AngelosP]

Does it make sense to update the schema in a way that:

1. It contains information regarding each one of the valid values
2. It also allows for literally any value to be considered as valid (since this is really an extension of MSBuild and it can do pretty much anything it wants to do)

This way #1 gives users who are new to all this a great starting point. They get to see the list of valid values out of the box + a little description that explains how to setup the value correctly.

Then all the advanced users who are off the beaten path will avoid getting errors / warnings because of #2.

[AngelosP]

@marcpopMSFT apologies if I'm pinging the wrong team for this :)

[marcpopMSFT]

1 makes sense to me but I'm not sure about 2 as that would allow for bad xml. Anyway, is this something you think we should be prioritizing as we're not at the moment and not received more feedback to move this higher?

[danmoseley]

I may be misunderstanding, but the XSD already allows you to restrict the property value to boolean (type="msb:boolean"), strings (type="msb:StringPropertyType"), or anything that's valid XML (type="msb:GenericPropertyType").

It looks like in all these years only one property has chosen this, but it works:

<xs:element name="CurrentSolutionConfigurationContents" type="msb:GenericPropertyType" substitutionGroup="msb:Property"/>

[danmoseley]

When editing the XSD's it might be worth removing insignificant whitespace. That would save some bytes on disk.