When creating an open source library on GitHub or another public website, should I publish the .nuspec file that describes the corresponding NuGet package?
I've done this a couple of times (since no API key or other sensitive information is included in the .nuspec file) in order to allow myself to easily publish subsequent versions without keeping private file, and to allow other people to fork it and add their own descriptions easily. However, the developers of many top packages don't seem to publish .nuspec files in their repositories (sometimes they publish NuGet.exe along with a .targets file, and so on), so I'm thinking that maybe I'm doing something wrong.
The package authoring should be considered part of the source code since it is a required asset to build the fully usable output.
Some projects use special msbuild-based tooling to create the nuspec file during the build so it seems like there is none in the repository. the new "SDK-based" projects (e.g. .NET Standard libraries) have integrated nuget tooling to be able to create a nupkg file from the csproj without the need to create a nuspec file. This tooling is also being adopted by some popular packages (e.g. Newtonsoft.Json).
Related
Is there a way to generate a solution and project file out of a folder structure through a azure pipeline .ymal stage?
The way the project has been set up is that there are lots of other .git repos set up inside a master repo and inserted though subtrees. These repos don't have a .sln in themselves but instead when they are added into Unity they get added into the projects .sln and a .csproj is generated for each of the assemblies within the submodule (package)
What I'm looking to do is to have documentation generated for each of these submodules whenever an update is pushed to its master (not the projects it lives in master) as these tend to be more utilities and self contained systems. Problem I'm facing is that I can trigger all the documentation system with docFX but because this module does not contain a .csproj I'm unable to generate the documentation for it. so I'm wondering if its possible to have a step where I can create a project file for all scripts that are within a folder structure, and as such then have a project file for docFX to work of.
I know its not ideal in any sense, but wondering if its a possibility while I investigate further into other solutions.
Is there a way to generate a solution and project file out of a folder
structure through a azure pipeline .ymal stage?
For this issue, I am afraid that azure pipeline is impossible to achieve this.
".csproj" is a Visual Studio .NET C# Project file extension. This file
will have information about the files included in that project,
assemblies used in that project, project GUID and project version etc.
This file is related to your project. It will be automatically
generated when we create
".sln" is a structure for organizing projects in Visual Studio. It
contains the state information for projects in .sln (text-based,
shared) and .suo (binary, user-specific solution options) files. We
can add multiple projects inside one solution.
Azure pipeline cannot generate a solution and project file according to the folder structure.
I found OctoPack to be incredibly straight forward when creating .nupkg nuget package files, however I I'd like the .nuspec file included (currently is placed in another folder such as obj/octopackage or something), and all the dlls should be placed inside a lib/net452 folder so that the general structure appears as such:
Currently everything that should be in the lib/net452 folder is simply placed in the root, along with _rels and package, and as mentioned the .nuspec file is missing.
Either the documentation is a little sparse or I've completely missed how to do this in my debugging mental haze. Anyone know how to specify to OctoPack where, specifically, to place the compiled output within the .nupkg file?
To create your NuGet package, you should be using nuget.exe, not OctoPack. I'll explain why in a minute.
The .nuspec file serves as the "blueprint" for your NuGet package (.nupkg). So the short answer is to simply specify the location in your .nuspec file, using the target attribute of the <files> element. Details can be found on the NuGet site, but it would look something like this:
<files>
<file src="bin\$configuration$\*.dll" target="lib\net452\" />
</files>
There are a number of ways to call nuget.exe in a post-build step; many are explained on the NuGet site as well.
OctoPack is not meant to create packages for nuget.org; it is designed specifically to create packages for Octopus Deploy. It creates packages one of two ways:
If there is a web.config file present, OctoPack assumes that the project is a web project, and packages the output accordingly. It uses the project file to determine which items are marked as content, and which are not (although it will always grab web.config transformation files).
Otherwise, OctoPack assumes that the project is an executable, or a component, and simply packs whatever it finds in the output folder (usually \Debug\bin or \Release\bin). This is the behavior that you're seeing.
Since OctoPack uses nuget.exe under the hood, a .nuspec file will override both of the above cases. So while you could use OctoPack to create your NuGet package, it's more appropriate to use nuget.exe.
So I'm actually trying to package up a web site project (not web application so no csproj file) into a NuGet package ready for Octopus to consume but am running into one brick wall after another..
I looked into using OctoPack but it doesn't support web site projects only web application projects.
I am now trying to find a way of adding a folder (in my case a web site) into a Nuget package but Nuget doesn't allow this via the command line does it? It also requires a .csproj file!
I've also tried trying to create the NuGet spec files and pass it in a folder but not possible?
For the moment I may have to use the NuGet package explorer but I want to script this.
I've looked at this question but doesn't seem to handle my scenario
Can I create a nuget package without a project file
So does anyone know how to best add a folder to a NuGet package via the command line!?
I don't know OctoPack, but with nuget.exe, packaging is done in two steps:
Either create a .nuspec manually, or generate one from a .csproj or existing assembly (see nuget spec in the docs).
Call nuget pack with the .nuspec created in the previous step as a parameter.
Since you don't have a .csproj lying around, you're stuck creating the .nuspec manually (or with a GUI tool like NuGet Package Explorer).
You can read all about how to create a .nuspec file in the Nuspec Reference, specifically the section about Specifying Files to Include in the Package.
If you want to include a folder (recursively?) in the package, you need to add something like this to the XML:
<files>
<file src="bin\Release\**\*.*" target="content" />
</files>
This will take all the files and (recursive) sub-folders of the bin\Release folder and put them in the content folder of the NuGet package.
I have no idea what format OctopusDeploy expects in the packages, but that's how you include a folder in the package.
EDIT: There seems to be some documentation on this in the OctoPack README.
Are there any guidelines or recommendations for managing libraries that aren't on nuget along with the packages that are.
Most of these may be 3rd party libraries that may never go on nuget unless we specifically put them on.
Is it best to keep these dlls out of the same folder that nuget uses to store its downloaded dlls or is it better to keep them together?
We would be looking at moving to DVCS once we sort this out and would probably add an ignore file to ignore the whole packages directory (and possibly add exclusions for these non-nuget dlls or just force them to be checked in if they ever do change).
My Personal Preferences (In Order)
Create a package and add it to NuGet (if licensing allows)
Create a package and put it in a private repository
Create a folder in the solution, store them all in there, add them to source control. Different folder than the nuget packages folder as it's clearer what it is and I don't add nuget dlls to source control.
For 1 & 2 i would recommend using Restore Package on build rather than storing it in your source control.
I'd also highly recommend against referencing any 3rd party controls from install folders or the GAC.
is it possible to use nuget to deploy test data instead of dlls?
we have some largish test data files which I don't want to keep in our git repository and I am wondering if we could deploy these to the test projects during the build by including them in a nuget package which gets installed during the build.
Is this possible?
Yes, but, without knowing a few more details about how your project is structured, it's difficult to tell you exactly how you would do this.
If you just want to copy your data files into a directory in your test project, you can just put the files in a content folder in a NuGet package, and it will copy them to your project automatically, much in the same way that it would copy DLLs. If this is all you need, you can create a package like this in a few minutes.
If you need to deploy the test data files to a directory outside of your project directory, or manipulate the file names or contents, you can do this as well. I usually create a tools package to do this.
I put the files I want to copy into a tools directory in my package, and then create a simple init.ps1 or install.ps1 script to do whatever copying and file manipulation tasks are required.
If you are intimidated by the prospect of creating packages from scratch, you may find NuGet Package Explorer helpful. You can create a content folder and drag the content you want to deploy into it:
http://npe.codeplex.com/