In the limited amount of time I've worked with NuGet, the packages.config files I've encountered have all been associated with a Visual Studio project. I've just found one that seems to not be associated with a project (in this case a C# project). Rather, it's purpose appears to be to gather tools that are required to successfully complete a build of the solution the project is a component of (i.e. the NuGet packages in the packages.config file are never referenced directly in a .cs file).
I know I can open the packages.config in a text editor and add a new package to it. However, that seems to run contrary to the idea of NuGet as I understand it, and I'm not sure if adding an entry into packages.config manually won't create problems down the road.
What is the best way to add a new NuGet package to a packages.config file that's not associated with a Visual Studio project like this? The Microsoft docs I've found so far all seem to mention a corresponding VS project ( see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/nuget/consume-packages/ways-to-install-a-package)
Using Visual Studio to manage NuGet references for .NET projects that use packages.config is useful/important because of all the extra things that need to happen on "install". But for .NET projects that use PackageReference, using Visual Studio is just a minor convenience because it will restore the packages at the same time as changing the XML. There is no Visual Studio UI for isolated packages.config files
So, there's no problems editing your packages.config file with a text editor. You'll just need to run nuget.exe restore yourself (or more likely it's part of a build script). In fact, the NuGet team have one themselves as part of their build.
Related
I'm helping a colleague who cannot get a Visual Studio WPF project to build in our TFS 2015 build server. I've pulled (get latest) the latest version of his code into my VS 2019 instance. I can't get it to build on my dev box. When I try to build the solution on my dev box I get errors like thing:
The tag 'ModernDialog' does not exist in XML namespace 'http://firstfloorsoftware.com/ModernUI'.
The tag 'Interaction.Triggers' does not exist in XML namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/2010/interactivity'.
When my colleague checks in changes into TFS, it fails with errors like this:
Unable to find version '5.2.0' of package 'MvvmLightLibs'.
Unable to find version '1.0.9' of package 'ModernUI.WPF'.
I started by trying to update the NuGet packages he had in the project, but that hasn't worked well. Even restoring back to the latest version doesn't build on my machine.
My colleague's approach is to rip all NuGet packages out of the Visual Studio solution, then look around to find the DLLs, then put them into the project and reference them in the project. It does build on his system but doesn't on the TFS build server.
So, I've been looking around for probable causes. I came across this Microsoft document Migrate from packages.config to PackageReference. I'm not familiar with either packages.config or PackageReference, but I get the feeling that PackageReference is the "preferred" way of including NuGet packages.
This raises problems. Currently our TFS build server's highest version of Visual Studio is VS 2015. According to the referenced article, VS 2015 uses packages.config files. Anything newer than VS 2015 uses Packages (PackageReference I presume).
I've compared the failing WPF solution with another one I've worked on which builds fine on the build server. The solution that builds, I'll call it SolutionA, has a packages folder at the root of the solution, but it also has packages.config files in each project in the solution. The solution that fails to build, I'll call it SolutionB, has the packages folder at its root, and one packages.config file in the unit test project. (I think the unit project builds fine.)
Even though we're working with newer versions of Visual Studio, I suspect that the problem the build server is having is due to the build server having an older version of Visual Studio. We have a limited number of licenses for Visual Studio, so I can't put a newer version of Visual Studio on the build server. So, how do I get those packages.config files into each projects?
First, your solution actually uses packages.config nuget management format. And this format makes every project has a file called packages.config which lists all the nuget packages and their versions. That is the feature of packages.config nuget management format. So you should also make sure that you have commit that file into TFS.
Second, that migrate packages.config into PackageReference is not an easy work and it should be done with VS IDE. Mostly, you have to make a big change to every csproj file of the project. Actually, PackageReference is flexible and lightweight, it does not have the packages.config file and packages folder which stores all the nuget packages. Just embed them directly in proj file. And so far, PackageReference is the mainstream.
Your problem is that you did not do a nuget restore operation on TFS build to make the missing nuget packages under the packages folder so that build process will find those nuget packages and make them work.
You should add a nuget restore xxx\sln command line or task.
Please check one,two,three.
I am working in an ASP.NET website (Website-A) code base which consumes an in-house NuGet package dependency.
Website-A consumes a pre-release of a NuGet dependency (Dependency-A). Opening Website-A and looking at "NuGet packages for solution" shows that Dependency-A is currently installed. Running "Restore NuGet packages" runs normally with no errors.
Rebuilding this .NET solution should result in a directory being created in one of the projects. (This directory will not be "included" in the project of Website-A, but the folder should be visible. I have clicked the "show all files" button.)
The issue is that this directory does not appear after rebuilding, nor after re-installing the dependency in NuGet package manager and then rebuilding.
We have discovered that if we manually delete the "packages" folder in the solution, and then "Restore NuGet packages", then rebuild the solution, the dependency will now create the directory like it should. It seems to need the "packages" folder to not exist in order to work like it should.
My question is: Is there something I am missing as far as a setting to automatically delete the packages folder? I would like to avoid having to manually delete this folder every time I need to update to a new pre-release of a NuGet package (we do a lot of this). I am using Visual Studio Enterprise 2017.
My question is: Is there something I am missing as far as a setting to
automatically delete the packages folder?
I'm afraid the answer is negative. AFAIK, VS doesn't have the option to delete the packages folder in Solution directory since it's not a normal way to do package update or package restore.
In addition: Do the pre-release packages have different names like packageName.1.2.0-beta1.nupkg,packageName.1.2.0-beta2.nupkg?
If your pre-release packages have different versions, and you update them using Update button in VS Package Manager UI, I think this strange issue you shouldn't encounter this issue. And if you have both projects in your local machine, it's not a good choice to develop locally with nuget packages...
In the company I work, inside every solution we have one folder packages, which contains all dll dependencies. This folder is not in repository with the rest of the solution.
Every time I build one project, all files inside folder packages are restored and any missing dlls appear again. This happens in the beginning of the build, no matter if the build succeeds of fails. Even if the project has no dll dependencies, any missing dlls in packages are restored.
I suspect it is a setting in msbuild but I cannot find it. Does anyone know where it might be or if there is a place with msbuild *.targets files?
thanks for any help
This is because Visual Studio restores packages defined in the packages.config files.
You can control this behaviour in Visual Studio in options:
From the MS Docs regarding regarding Nuget:
MSBuild: use the msbuild -t:restore command, which restores packages
packages listed in the project file (PackageReference only). Available
only in NuGet 4.x+ and MSBuild 15.1+, which are included with Visual
Studio 2017. nuget restore and dotnet restore both use this command
for applicable projects.
Further down, there's quite a bit about enabling/disabling and modifying this behavior in a variety of ways.
Allow NuGet to download missing packages: controls all forms of
package restore by changing the packageRestore/enabled setting in the
NuGet.Config file as shown below (%AppData%\NuGet\NuGet.Config on
Windows, ~/.nuget/NuGet/NuGet.Config on Mac/Linux). In Visual Studio,
this setting allows the Restore NuGet Packages command on the
solution's context menu to work.
Appearing to be more to your issue:
Automatically check for missing packages during build in Visual
Studio: controls automatic restore by changing the
packageRestore/automatic setting in the NuGet.Config file as shown
below (%AppData%\NuGet\NuGet.Config on Windows,
~/.nuget/NuGet/NuGet.Config on Mac/Linux). When this option is set,
running a build from Visual Studio automatically restores any missing
packages. The option does not affect builds run from the command line
using MSBuild.
Nowadays there's a lot of great open source packages and frameworks for all sorts of uses. Let's take for example, ASP.NET Core MVC and Newtonsoft.Json.
Those are shipped in Nuget packages, which are stripped of the source code.
I think many of you can remember a lot of situations in which one would like to see the source code freely available on GitHub (to help debugguing some issue), but was forced to do one of the following:
Be lazy and just forget about it, or continue debugging your issue with a popular library treating it more like a "black box";
Go to the browser, type github.com and search the source code without the mighty advises of the Visual Studio IDE;
Spend 5 minutes, clone the repository to the local drive and look at it with IDE;
Spend even more time while compiling the source code, deinstalling all of the nuget packages of interest from your projects and instead, hooking up directly to all of the freshly compiled assemblies (which are not always one-to-one to Nuget package).
This last option is the most viable, but you're left with a lot of time spent and you can't just push this to your repository or deploy the compiled code anymore. Other developers won't find those relative paths to the dlls and customers may end up with wrong versions of nuget packages baked in the deployment package.
Is there a fifth option which has all the pros of the fourth, but none of the cons? I imagine this being done by an IDE in an isolated fasion, i.e. no modification to my .csproj and package.config files, but the "Go to definition" & "Find all references" features and debugging should work as if I'm hooked up to the real stuff.
Yes, I'm pretty lazy.
Please pack the package as symbols package and then put the PackageName.Symbols.nupkg file with the ProjectName.nupkg file on the same package server after you downloading the package source code. I’m using following steps to debug my NuGet package source code in Visual Studio IDE.
Create my NuGet package project and implement the function that I want. In your situation, you just need to download the package source code from Github.com.
Build the project in your Visual Studio IDE, it will general a dll file and a pdb file in bin\Debug folder.
Download NuGet.exe and run this command to pack the source code project to package:
NuGet Pack MyProject.csproj -Symbols
There will generate two files, one is ProjectName.symbols.nupkg and another is ProjectName.nupkg. Upload these files to your NuGet Server. And you also can put them on your local driver.
Add your NuGet Server into your Visual Studio IDE through Tools -> Options -> Package Manager Console -> Package Source.
Open your project and install the package from the added package source.
Right-click your solution, choose Properties -> Common properties -> Debug Source Files, add the path where the PackageName.Symbols.nupkg file with the ProjectName.nupkg file stored on your local machine.
Now when your start debug your project and press F11 step into one function in your installed package, it will step into then package source code.
as mentioned in one of the comments, there is a VS extension that does this:
Nuget Reference Switcher (select one that matches your VS version to install), for more info, you can read its wiki on github.
here is what I usually do:
git clone the source repository
add the open sourced .sln/.csproj to your own solution:
run nuget reference switcher extension
This is equivalent to your step 4, but a lot less work since the heavy lifting is done by the extension.
I am writing a Windows Phone app, at the beggining using VS 2010 Express for windows phone. Then I installed VS 2012 and i made a desktop app which consumed JSON/REST service using RestSharp. Due to lack of support for plugins in Express version, i got full VS 2010 Ultimate and installed Nuget. When I create a win phone library project, and i add a RestSharp package, it shows in References, but i cannot access any of it's classes (and using RestSharp is underlined in red color). Also, when i Remove it and add again from Add Reference i get an Incompatible reference error window:
RestSharp.WindowsPhone, Version=103.2.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null" is incompatible with
Windows Phone 7.1
In order to add it yourself you should to change the project's terget to a compatible framework first.
It also appears if i change the target to WP 7.0.
Has anyone solved similar problem?
In my case this was because there was a packages.config file in the project folder but not in the solution. This was why I could not add the reference again properly. Delete this file from the physical disk, and re-run your Install-Package command. It should add this correctly now.
Are you using source control?
The it might be possible that you have not yet set the solution to enable package restore (NuGet documentation).
Right click on the Solution node in Solution Explorer and select
Enable NuGet Package Restore.
After that Solution Explorer will contain a few items more and there will be a new folder packages that was automatically added to your solution folder. You will need this folder to add to your version control because it will contain your installed NuGet packages.
That's it.
If you want to know more, here's more details on what it (automatically) does for you:
It added a solution folder named .nuget containing NuGet.exe and a
NuGet.targets MsBuild file. It also changed every project in the
solution to import the NuGet.targets MsBuild task.
With this in place, any time a project is compiled, the build task
will look at each project's packages.config file and for each package
in that file, ensure that the corresponding package exists within the
packages folder. For any missing package, the build task will download
and unpack the package.
In the restore scenario, NuGet will grab the exact version when
restoring a package. It will not perform any upgrades.
Additionally, if you have the latest NuGet version installed, will now find a new option unter Tools -> Options... -> Package Manager -> General -> Allow NuGet to download missing packages during build that I would also suggest to use.
The name says it all. If the solution is configured to use a certain NuGet package but the package is not yet installed on your development machine, NuGet will download it automatically for you when you do your next build.