cake: Bug? "More than one build script specified" when calling build.ps1 with a custom cake script and extra parameters

Ugh, I just found #1690 which suggests the syntax I need is --target=Clean, which works fine. Seems like the main problem here is the confusing error message and the (lack of) docs.

I have seen this before, it seems to come from when the extra param value contains a ‘.’ > .\build.ps1 -Target "my-target" -Version="1.2.3"

this fails with the same output. from the notes i have on my fix, i looked at the cake source and see that the extra arguments will support ‘-’ or ‘–’ syntax.

i was able to change my use-case to the following to get it to work without modifying the build script or the underlying binary. > .\build.ps1 -Target "my-target" --Version="1.2.3"

this is with 0.15.2

@dasiths are you using the most recent version of the PowerShell bootstrapper?

Getting the same when trying to specify a target via build.sh:

> ./build.sh -target Clean
More than one build script specified.
For usage, use parameter --help
> ./build.sh --target Clean
More than one build script specified.
For usage, use parameter --help

And --help doesn’t even mention the ability to specify a target 😕 :

> ./build.sh --help

Usage: Cake.exe [script] [--verbosity=value]
                [--showdescription] [--dryrun] [..]

Example: Cake.exe
Example: Cake.exe build.cake --verbosity=quiet
Example: Cake.exe build.cake --showdescription

Options:
    --verbosity=value    Specifies the amount of information to be displayed.
                         (Quiet, Minimal, Normal, Verbose, Diagnostic)
    --debug              Performs a debug.
    --showdescription    Shows description about tasks.
    --dryrun             Performs a dry run.
    --version            Displays version information.
    --help               Displays usage information.

Here is relevant --version output:

Version 0.28.1+Branch.main.Sha.1da1ea266471a2bb8034fc4a89017b5dcf455268
Running on .NET Core

Actually I think the fix is even simpler in my case, the default build.ps1 isn’t reading the $Script variable as a parameter. It just defaults: [CmdletBinding()] Param( [string]$Script = "build.cake",

Removed default: [CmdletBinding()] Param( [string]$Script,

It is now running the cake script that I pass in as a parameter

Tried all the variations on this page, none worked. This is what finally worked for us:

.\build.ps1 --% --ScriptArgs @('--targetTargetName','--exclusive','--buildUrl=%teamcity.serverUrl%/viewLog.html?buildId=%teamcity.build.id%&buildTypeId=%system.teamcity.buildType.id%')

The --% tells powershell to stop parsing text (ref: https://slai.github.io/posts/powershell-and-external-commands-done-right/) and the @(‘’,‘’,‘’…) notation is a command line string array (ref: https://www.varonis.com/blog/powershell-array/). As you can see, this was used in TeamCity and we have a url as a parameter, which complicated things.

@dasiths glad to hear that you were able to get this working.

This still appears to be broken…

@nate-datafinch If you’re using TeamCity then it could be because TeamCity appears to pass script arguments to powershell as a comma separated list, which breaks arguments that need to be passed as an array (like ScriptArgs).

I got around this by avoiding the TeamCity Powershell runner and just calling powershell directly from a command line task, e.g.:

powershell -NoProfile -NonInteractive -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -File ./build.ps1 --target=Default --buildVersion=1.0.0.577