[Feature Request]: Bitshift MSBuild Property Function

[333fred]

Issue Description

For reasons being Android version codes (which must be a single number), I'd like to be able to bitshift various parts of my major/minor/patch numbers together to make a single applicationversion number. There's no msbuild property function for this today, though, so I need to resort to an inline task. We already have some bitwise ops (such as and and or), but not shifts.

Steps to Reproduce

N/A

Expected Behavior

N/A

Actual Behavior

N/A

Analysis

https://github.com/dotnet/msbuild/blob/main/src/Build/Evaluation/IntrinsicFunctions.cs will need to be updated.

Versions & Configurations

No response

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

Could multiply or divide with powers of two instead.

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

Property Functions:

In static property functions, you can use any static method or property of these system classes:

In .NET 7.0 and later, System.Int32 actually has a private static method named System.Numerics.IShiftOperators<System.Int32,System.Int32,System.Int32>.op_LeftShift, but this throws error MSB4186 in MSBuild version 17.6.0-preview-23108-10+51df47643:

<Project>
  <Target Name="Build">
    <Message Text="value=$([System.Int32]::System.Numerics.IShiftOperators&lt;System.Int32,System.Int32,System.Int32&gt;.op_LeftShift(2, 2))" Importance="high"/>
  </Target>
</Project>

It seems the documentation is a bit incomplete as it does not say that the static method or property must be public. I don't know whether MSBuild would have a syntax for quoting a method name that contains characters like this, if the method were public.

[rainersigwald]

I have no objection to adding $([MSBuild]::LeftShift()) and friends next to $([MSBuild]::Add()) in IntrinsicFunctions.

It seems the documentation is a bit incomplete as it does not say that the static method or property must be public.

MicrosoftDocs/visualstudio-docs#9045

[333fred]

Could multiply or divide with powers of two instead.

I could, yes, but I feel that's more unmaintainable than a code task.

[jrdodds]

If this issue passes triage, I would be happy to have it assigned to me. Thanks.

I'm assuming the work would be to add three new methods in IntrinsicFunctions:

• LeftShift
• RightShift
• RightShiftUnsigned

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

Are those going to be overloaded for Int32 and Int64?

[jrdodds]

The existing bit operator functions are int only.

Is there a use case for long?

The functions wouldn't be overloaded. They would need to have different names.

[AR-May]

Team triage: We would like to have it. We are assigning it to @jrdodds, thank you for volunteering!

@333fred, are 32-bit operators sufficient for you?