My company uses the built in TeamCity NuGet repo to create custom NuGet packages that often depend on each other. When I, say, update a .cs page in a custom parent package I'd like for those changes to propagate to all of our packages that are dependent packages of the parent - I believe I can accomplish this using a NuGet installer to "update packages".
My fear is that while I know I can force this update upon all our packages, I want to find a way to exclude anything that isn't hosted on our company repo (which should also mean anything that is hosted on the NuGet.org repo), so anything that we are using from an outside source isn't lumped into this NuGet update.
Preferably, I'd like to know if there's a way to handle this in the our .nuspec for each of our packages (though it seems wildcards don't accomplish this). Any insight to my problem here?
Honestly, it sounds a bit like you're trying to re-create the project reference experience with NuGet packages. If it's at all reasonable to do so, perhaps your best option would be to have all projects in a single solution and use project references instead.
If you're able to migrate your projects to SDK style projects (used by .NET Core, but you can still target the .NET Framework), then you can use dotnet list package or the dotnet-outdated tool. dotnet list package --outdated has an option to specify a list of sources to use. Perhaps if you only specify your private feed it may only search that one. Otherwise the script you create to do all this will need to overwrite the nuget.config file to remove other sources (like nuget.org) when running the command to get your desired output. Then you parse the output and when it finds an update, it modifies the relevant file(s).
Related
I'm looking for a simple way to manage NuGet packages for the whole solution, to prevent conflicts between transitive NuGet packages when assembling all files into one installer.
When building a project all direct and indirect dependencies are analyzed and the NuGet resolution picks up the best matching version for each NuGet that is at least the same version as the lowest version and might also create binding redirects if necessary. (all good and fine)
The problem we have lately encountered was when we build the whole solution (200+ projects) at once, the resulting NuGet versions between all top level projects might not be identical. And due to the fact, that all resulting DLL and EXE files are installed into the same program files folder, the application can and will crash at runtime due to version mismatches when loading assemblies.
To better understand this issue I've created this sample repo.
The dependency graph looks like this:
Library1
Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens-5.2.1
Executable1
System.IdentityModel.Tokens.Jwt-5.3.0 (transitive reference: Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens-5.3.0)
Library1
results in: Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens-5.3.0
Executable2
Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens-5.2.1
results in: Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens-5.2.1
To demonstrate the problem, all projects compile to the same bin folder. When the whole solution is compiled and Executable2 is started, the application crashes, since the application expects Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens in version 5.2.1 but the actual version is 5.3.0.
For this constructed sample it is easy to find the problem and fix it with updating the Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens NuGet to the same version. (Manually, since Visual Studio Package Manager does not recognize this conflict in the consolidate tab).
But at a much greater scale it is far more complex to find those mismatches.
What we have found so far
Centrally managing NuGet package versions
Since it is not yet available, it cannot be used to solve the issue here.
Microsoft.Build.CentralPackageVersions
Unfortunately there is no IDE support for it, which makes managing NuGet packages very uncomfortable, which I would like to avoid if possible.
So my question is what is the best approach to avoid NuGet version conflicts between projects within the same solution?
We've experienced the same problem with some of our projects. We've been using Paket package manager since a couple of years and this has resolved that issue for us.
In short: you define on your solution level which packages you want to use in a file called 'paket.dependencies'. You can be very specific about versions, or let packet use the latest greatest. Then you can specify per project which NuGet package you want to use within that project in a 'paket.references' file. As the name implies, you reference to a package in the paket.dependencies file.
This will make sure, all references packages in your project will use the same package version. I hope this suits your needs as well.
I've added new models and helpers to my project, but when I run nuget pack and install the package in my project I don't see the new items in the Assembly Explorer nor can I use them. Am I missing something during the build that wouldn't include new files added to the package?
I'm using visual studio 2017 and the nuget cli
At a guess, you didn't change the package version when you changed the code and packed again. NuGet is designed such that the package id/version produces an immutable package. This means it's valid to download a package, say Newtonsoft.Json 12.0.1 from nuget.org just once, and every time you use that package in any project on the same computer you can re-use the same download, rather than having to download it every time you restore/build the project.
This causes some people problems when they're trying to test their packages. One option is to take advantage of Semantic Versioning and use 1.0.1-preview.1, 1.0.1-preview.2, so every single build of the project has a unique version number. In addition, or instead, you could use a nuget.config to set the globalPackagesFolder to a different location that gets cleared every time you change the package. If you delete the "cache", it can't reuse the old contents. But this only works if you control the machines that use the package. Once you publish the package where anyone else can use the package, you will cause problems if you change the contents, which is why nuget.org doesn't allow deleting packages, only unlisting them.
However, another possible solution is to just not use packages and simply use project references. Some people have the misconception that if you have two packages, one depends on the other, that they need to use package references to make sure NuGet dependency information flows. That's not correct. If you pack with the MSBuild pack targets (highly recommended, and the default option for SDK style projects), NuGet will always convert project references into NuGet dependencies. nuget pack will convert project references into dependencies when the other project also has its own nuspec file. When you test your project with project references, you never have to worry about immutable packages. Just pack when it's ready, but it's not needed for testing.
Maybe you have a .nuspec file (at the same level than your .csproj) that you need to edit to include new files?
Using: .net core mvc c#
I have a solution which has a .net mvc core web app & one class library. There is a shared project (class library) that I want to this solution
which is a part of different project (different solution as well).
All of these projects are stored in our local GIT repository.
If I add the external project as project dependency in my existing project then there would be 2 copies of the external project that we have to
maintain. If some developer updates external project how does the change propogates to other projects using it.
And there could be that some developer updates the external project when under its local solution which we want to prevent. Since all are in GIT
is it possible somehow to make dependency related so that any change in external is known to others.
So basically how can we prevent anyone to make local updates to the external project but also make sure any updates to external project are available to
any other project using them.
There are several approaches that you can use to achieve this.
Quick: Reference project in two solutions
The quickest is to reference the shared project from both solutions. This way, you can use it in both projects and the changes are propagated to the other solution because you are basically working on the same files. However, a huge drawback of this approach is that if you make changes in solution A that are not compatible with solution B (e.g. removing a method that is used in solution B), you will only find out when working on solution B.
Easy: Single solution
To fix this, you could merge the solutions into a single one that contains the shared proect and also the other projects from solutions A & B. This way, you still get the convenience of project references in a solution. In addition, you are notified about breaking changes immediately if you build the complete solution. If this approach is viable for you in terms of solution size and team structure, I'd favor this approach. As you already share a single Git repository, I think this approach is well worth considering.
Nuget Package
If you want to keep the solutions strictly separated, you'd need to follow a more complex procedure. You could for instance move the shared project into a solution of its own and create a Nuget package with a clear build and versioning strategy. You can host the Nuget package on a package feed (e.g. on Visual Studio Team Services). Solutions A and B can then reference the Nuget package from the feed and also update it if a new version becomes available.
Here the official documentation to create nuget package with nuspec or csproj
Create .NET Standard 2.0 packages with Visual Studio 2017 [CSPROJ]
Creating NuGet packages [NUSPEC]
I am building a new project in ASP.NET 5.
In my solution I have added a new Class Library (Package) project.
I right click on this project and choose for Manage Nuget packages to install PetaPoco.Core.
When I install everything seems fine except that the PetaPoco.cs file is not in my project.
In my references I se the PetaPoco version 5.1.171 installed.
Is this something different then a normal class library and do I need to use something else in order to use the installed PetaPoco class or is it a problem during the installation?
I have removed and reinstalled this but still the same.
Someone that can help me out?
/Michael
It looks like the PetaPoco.Core package isn't setup to be used in portable class libraries (PCLs).
Including content files in PCLs like the Models folder that PetaPoco.Core creates requires a different NuGet setup than a regular project. Documentation on this can be found on NuGet. I downloaded their package directly and can confirm that it is not setup in the way the linked resource describes.
It may be that the project requires features that are not available yet cross-platform, or they simply haven't had time to make changes to support PCLs, or some other reason that I am not aware of.
NuGet packages are usually installed as DLLs in the bin folder of your project, with the needed references also added automatically to the project. They usually don't include source files. You may find sources - if available - on the package/project website.
Visual Studio IntelliSense will pick up the DLLs and show what it can about the classes and methods inside, including comments and method signatures.
See here for a tutorial, including how to build your own NuGet packages.
EDIT: PetaPoco is the exception that does add a .cs file... see comment below.
We are developing a WPF application at work which has various "common" dependencies (Unity, Prism, etc.).
It's all fine when adding new projects and then setting up the NuGet package dependency per project but when it comes to upgrades, it's really painful as it means we have to go through each and every project, delete the old references and then refetch the latest packages from NuGet.
Today for instance, I was tasked with upgrading Prism from 5.0 to 6.0 (which has breaking changes anyway) and this meant, in addition to fixing all the namespace conflicts, etc. that I had to go through every project, delete the old references, add the new dependecies and rinse and repeat.
My question is, is there a smarter way to deal with this problem or is this the standard approach?
Many thanks in advance,
Update:
I am mostly concerned with "major" upgrades which don't show up on the package manager. Version 5.0 -> 6.0 upgrade would be treated as a major upgrade and hence, would not have an automatic update applied to it in the NuGet package manager.
I don't expect NuGet to be able to do this automatically for me since such upgrades may (and often do) include breaking changes but I would like to know if there's a way to do the major upgrades less painfully than deleting the references from the projects and the packages.config for every project and then re-adding them using NuGet. For a relatively large project, this is very time consuming and I was wondering if anyone had a better way of managing such dependencies.
If you use VS2013 like you say, you can manage ALL your NuGet packages by right-clicking on your Solution and selecting 'Manage NuGet Packages For Solution'. This brings up a dialog where you can view all packages installed for all projects in the solution and all packages that have updates available. When you do upgrade the packages, VS takes care of all the reference changes required. If the package has breaking changes, then you're still on the hook for fixing those.
Disclaimer: I've never worked on a WPF project/solution but for Web/Forms apps, NuGet packages are handled this way.
I can understand your pain because i had the similar problem like you, but there is no easy way. but certainly you need to break the process differently of your daily development and your dependency update roll-out.
for the project i worked on, I use the common repository path that shared among the solutions that you work on, and you need to delete all the solutions folder references in order to get a clean state.
For each solution you work on you need to modify the property group that point to the common target repository (i'm using relative path)
Once all the things setup, you can actually perform an update with a script(I'm using python run-time script)
you can actually look at setting up common nuget-packages-folder for reference updates for detail, but it seems like what you looking at for the automate process
I had a similar problem when trying to upgrade multiple packages with alpha channel issues in Xamarin Studio, which also does not have the niceties of VS 2015 NuGet manager. I ended up writing a very simple PowerShell script that I run multiple times a day.
#
# This script updates local ibGib NuGet packages for mobileGib Android app solution.
# For convenience in copy+paste in manager console:
# ../UpdateLocalNugetPackages.ps1
Update-Package commonGib
Update-Package ibGib
Update-Package languageGib.Biz
Etc.
I believe you could tailor your NuGet commands to fit your needs.
Also, just in case you aren't aware of it, you should definitely read the NuGet command line reference. I may be mistaken, but it sounds like your scenario is doable with the Update command.