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title ItemGroup Element (MSBuild)
description Learn about the MSBuild ItemGroup element, which contains a set of user-defined Item elements. Every item must be a child of an ItemGroup.
ms.date 11/04/2016
ms.topic reference
f1_keywords
dev_langs
VB
CSharp
C++
helpviewer_keywords
ItemGroup element [MSBuild]
<ItemGroup> element [MSBuild]
author ghogen
ms.author ghogen
ms.subservice msbuild

ItemGroup element (MSBuild)

Contains a set of user-defined Item elements. Every item used in an MSBuild project must be specified as a child of an ItemGroup element.

<Project> <ItemGroup>

Syntax

<ItemGroup Condition="'String A' == 'String B'"
           Label="Label">
    <Item1>... </Item1>
    <Item2>... </Item2>
</ItemGroup>

Attributes and elements

The following sections describe attributes, child elements, and parent elements.

Attributes

Attribute Description
Condition Optional attribute. Condition to be evaluated. For more information, see Conditions.
Label Optional attribute. Identifies the ItemGroup.

Child elements

Element Description
Item Defines the inputs for the build process. There may be zero or more Item elements in an ItemGroup.

In addition to the generic Item element, ItemGroup allows child elements that represent types of items, such as Reference, ProjectReference, Compile, and others as listed at Common MSBuild project items.

Parent elements

Element Description
Project Required root element of an MSBuild project file.
Target The ItemGroup element can appear inside a Target element. For more information, see Targets.

Example

The following code example shows the user-defined item collections Res and CodeFiles declared inside of an ItemGroup element. Each of the items in the Res item collection contains a user-defined child ItemMetadata element.

<Project>
    <ItemGroup>
        <Res Include = "Strings.fr.resources" >
            <Culture>fr</Culture>
        </Res>
        <Res Include = "Dialogs.fr.resources" >
            <Culture>fr</Culture>
        </Res>

        <CodeFiles Include="**\*.cs" Exclude="**\generated\*.cs" />
        <CodeFiles Include="..\..\Resources\Constants.cs" />
    </ItemGroup>
...
</Project>

In a simple project file, you normally use a single ItemGroup element, but you can also use multiple ItemGroup elements. When multiple ItemGroup elements are used, items are combined into a single ItemGroup. For example, some items might be included by a separate ItemGroup element that's defined in an imported file.

ItemGroups can have conditions applied by using the Condition attribute. In that case, the items are only added to the item list if the condition is satisfied. See MSBuild conditions

The Label attribute is used in some build systems as a way to control build behaviors. You can use it only in declarations, as a way to create more understandable MSBuild scripts, or as a control setting to affect build actions.

See also