HEAT V4 differentiation of metadata & properties

[MarkStega]

I am not understanding the difference between using metadata & properties to control harvesting

As an example the following does not suppress the indicated elements that I want suppressed:

    <HarvestDirectory Include="$(SolutionDir)FileCleanupService.2012\bin"
					  ComponentGroupName="FileCleanupService"
					  HarvestDirectorySuppressCom="true"
					  HarvestDirectorySuppressFragments="true"
					  HarvestDirectorySuppressRegistry="true"
					  HarvestDirectorySuppressRootDirectory="true"
					  HarvestDirectoryTransforms="$(ProjectDir)Filter.xslt" />

but the following works:

    <HarvestDirectory Include="$(SolutionDir)FileCleanupService.2012\bin\" 
					  HarvestDirectoryTransforms="$(ProjectDir)Filter.xslt">
      <ComponentGroupName>FileCleanupService</ComponentGroupName>
      <DirectoryRefId>APPLICATIONROOTDIRECTORY1</DirectoryRefId>
      <SuppressCom>true</SuppressCom>
      <SuppressRegistry>true</SuppressRegistry>
      <SuppressRootDirectory>true</SuppressRootDirectory>
    </HarvestDirectory>

Am I just not applying the properties correctly? The documentation for the properties is a bit confusing with respect to how to use them...

[robmen]

Those are two different ways to represent the same thing: MSBuild metadata as properties or as attributes.

However, you are using different names for the Metadata in your two examples. That is probably why you see different behavior.

[rseanhall]

HarvestDirectorySuppressRegistry is an example of a property. SuppressCom is an example of item metadata. Properties are declared as an element inside of the PropertyGroup element, not as metadata. For that example, this means that they are applied to all HarvestDirectory elements in the project.

[MarkStega]

@robmen @rseanhall

Just to verify that I have this correct:

Any of the metadata can be expressed either as an attribute or a property, ie:

		<HarvestDirectory Include="$(SolutionDir)CommunicationService.2012\bin\">
			<ComponentGroupName>CommunicationService</ComponentGroupName>
		</HarvestDirectory>

and

		<HarvestDirectory Include="$(SolutionDir)CommunicationService.2012\bin\"
			                      ComponentGroupName="CommunicationService"
		</HarvestDirectory>

are equivalent uses of metadata.

Using a property is limited to a PropertyGroup and becomes a global setting so

<PropertyGroup>
    <HarvestDirectorySuppressCom>true </HarvestDirectorySuppressCom>
</PropertyGroup>

sets the suppression of COM elements for all elements.

1. For something such as suppress COM which is defined as both metadata & property what takes precedent if both are specified? (I would hope that the metadata overrides the property.)

2. For anything settable as a property that doesn't have a corresponding metadata definition I presume it would be a code change to support the metadata? An example would be that a property exists for "SuppressFragments" but there is no metadata to control that so it would be an all or none decision.