I found that nuget seems to always install packages under the folder of the visual studio project.
It is not feasible for me because the package that I'm going to distribute contains huge amount of data. I don't want to make a copy of that whenever I add that package to a new visual studio project.
I want that data to be shared between projects. Since it is shared, if one project removed that package, the data should stay there until I explicitly tell the system to remove it.
Is there any way that can deal with this kind of problem?
I heard that Maven installs packages in a global location and it doesn't have such a problem. How about using Maven to install .NET libraries, is that possible? What would be the potential problems?
To upload and store your .NET artefacts you'll need a Maven repository manager like Nexus, Artifactory or Archiva. Good news is that these are capable of storing files of any type.
If you don't fancy converting your build process over to Maven, I'd recommend the following answer on using Apache ivy with MSBuild. All Maven clients appear to cache their downloads for use across projects (They're basically intelligent downloaders)
The upcoming 2.0 version of Nexus promises integration with NuGet. I'm expecting better .NET support from Maven in the future.
Related
Just curious, per my title above.
I am leaning towards a nuget package-like style, where the dev team can continuously update libraries (dll's) and deploy them to a central location e.g. Nuget. Then, have project reference the dll depending on the version that's been deployed in a central location e.g. Nuget.
Deploying the dll's in a shared folder won't work.
Please advise, thanks.
Actually, nuget is the best way.
Pack
You can work with your teammates to maintain the same nuget project. When you are creating a nuget package or make some changes, you can just set different nuget versions for them to pack them as nuget package(.nupkg). These are different pack functions(non-sdk project uses nuget.exe, new-sdk projects use dotnet cli, msbuild.exe can work with both of them but note in non-sdk projects, it works with non-sdk projects with PackageReference).
Push
When you finish it, you could push the nuget package into a a shared folder, or push into an azure devops feed.
Use
You just send the full path of the shared folder or the feed url link(they should give your teammates sufficient permissions)
And anyone who wants to use it should set the link into nuget package sources, and then they can install it to use it.
Besides, if there is a subsequent update operation, as a nuget maintainer, you modify the lib project, after that, set a new version for it, any descriptions to tell others there is a new release updated version during pack process.
Then, push the new version into the feed to let others could install it.
We are experimenting with nuget for our visual studio projects. However, we only (or at least mainly) use nuget for our own external references, and we store them in a local repository (network share). What I would like to know is how to handle the whole debug/release situation.
Concrete (simplified) situation:
We have a main project that has references to two shared components that we developed ourselves. These shared components are also used in other products of our company
When we build the main project (azure pipelines), we build the debug and release versions of the project. However, we can only specify a single nuget package for each external reference.
What we want to accomplish to to use the debug version of the shared components during the debug build, and the release version during the release build. However, these are (as far as I know) actually different packages.
What is the way of tackeling this issue? Is there, for instance, a way to include both the release and debug versions in a single nuget package? Is it possible to have to different nuget configurations for different build configuration settings?
I've found Best practices with Nuget: Debug or Release?, however this topic doesn't really address my issue. This thread is more a discussion about whether to publish debug or release versions to a remote server. We want to publish both and use both in a private repository. We have no intention of sharing our libraries with the rest of the world.
A NuGet package will normally hold just a single set of assemblies for a particular target framework. It is not really designed to ship a debug and release version since you are publishing the NuGet package to be consumed by other users. Normally you do not publish a debug and a separate release version of your application to end users.
You may be able to workaround this by using a custom MSBuild .targets file in the NuGet package that has its own references and configuration information. You can use this .targets file as an extension to your project. It will be imported so you can define the references as you need based on the configurations defined in your project. It is not ideal but it should work.
We are currently migrating our source control to Visual Studio Online. A feature we had in our old system (SourceGear Vault) was to share projects between solutions. Although this created a folder for our Framework project in each solution it kept it up to date when changes were checked in.
This is useful to us as it allows us to work on the Framework code in all the Solutions that are using it. I know its better practice to just compile the dlls and reference them - at this point in development we want to continue having full code access and debugging in all the solutions using this core framework.
Any help very much appreciated.
You have a few equally valid options for handling shared projects:
Reference the same project from each solution that needs it.
This gives you full control over the source code of the shared project while you work on the consuming solution, and may allow for easier debugging.
The downside here is that maintenance and releases may become trickier if Solution A is being released on Thursday, but Solution B is being released in 3 months and is in the middle of a huge refactoring cycle that has significantly modified Shared Component X, and Shared Component X isn't stable enough to be released.
Reference shared components from an internal NuGet repo.
You set up your release pipeline to push the shared components into NuGet as part of your release process (ideally, using a purpose-built release management tool... Microsoft Release Management is what I have in mind here) -- you check the code in, project gets built. Release process packages it up and pushes it into NuGet as a "prerelease" version. You reference the latest version in anything that needs the latest version.
If you need to reference a known-good, stable version, you just make sure your project is configured to pull a specific version from NuGet.
When you're done, you've tested the shared thing, and you know everything is good, you approve the prerelease version, and the same binaries are repackaged into a "stable" version.
The downside here is that there are some additional software requirements, configuration, and training for your team. This would be my recommended approach.
Check binaries into source control.
I don't recommend this one -- you end up bloating your source control repo (and if you're using Git, it's an explicitly stated anti-pattern -- never put binaries into Git, it causes long-term severe performance problems), and it's never exactly clear which projects are using which versions of which assemblies. It's a maintenance nightmare.
(1) is the best approach if you're releasing everything in lockstep and don't have to worry about maintaining separate versions.
(2) is the best approach if #1 is false.
(3) is the best approach if #1 is false and you're a time traveler who is posting from 2006.
Have you considered implementing Symbol Server and Source Server indexing with the check-in binaries or NuGet repo approach? This allows you to easily get back to the source while debugging and it's coming from a single known location. Visual Studio Online and Team Foundation Server have built-in support for helping you out with getting this setup during your build process. Here's more information in a write-up here: Source Server and Symbol Server Support in Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Online
Thanks for the responses. We actually found a solution that works well for us. We branch our framework project into the implementation projects when we want access to the code base. If not we just use the DLLs
If it is then altered and checked into the implementation project it can be merged back with the other Framework branches easily when ready.
This probably wouldn't work well if the Framework code was being developed heavily, as it is now its only undergoing small additions and tweaks so wont be plagued with merge issues.
I have to agree with the majority. I just ran into the same issue. I implemented the Nuget Gallery Site on the internal network. It was a pain to implement, but once implemented, it's easy to use. I created a class library project that implements ADO.Net and the EntityFramework. I bundled it into a NuGet package and uploaded it to the internal NuGet gallery. From there I was able to add a package source to the internal NuGet gallery and grab the package that I uploaded. Very simple and convenient.
I set up the NuGet Gallery with Visual Studios 2017. FYI: Make sure that building the project isn't part of the Publish. It will not render with a ViewHelper.cshtml error.
I created the projects with Visual Studios 2015. I ran the command prompt as administrator. I also had to copy the NuGet.exe file into the directory where the project file existed.
Check out the below links for more information.
NuGet Gallery
Hosting NuGet Gallery
Create and Publish Package
Creating a Package
Create .Net Standard Package
What is the best way to share dll libraries between projects, through VS2010? For example we have made a generic helper library that is useful in everything. However, we need more than one library to be included (which is a separate project in TFS) so branching is not suitable.
We are using Team Foundation Server 2010 for source control. Is there maybe a simple way to integrate these libraries into a new project, so the new project can come "fully buffed" very fast?
What we do now is go through each project, build them, store the dll files, add a new project then throw them in the Bin folder, which is tedious work when you have many libraries.
Have you thought about hosting your own NuGet feed? I use a pre-build script for NuGet for each of my projects which downloads packages for me before the project is built, and, I assume, keeps them up to date.
I don't think that there is some TFS-based solution for sharing binaries between projects. However you can use NuGet to do it for you. Create nuget package for each project (you can create TFS build definition to do it automatically) and publish it to network share. Than add this share as NuGet feed.
It has been common practice to check nuget packages used in a solution into source control. With the new package restore feature of nuget 1.6 it is no longer necessary to check packages into source control. However, this leaves your projects dependent on nuget.org. There may come a time when a needed package is not available on nuget.org and not available locally in your organization, without which you would not be able to build your project.
Are there any enterprise solutions for backing up nuget packages used in projects in a centralized fashion? One scenario is to have an enterprise nuget proxy server, from which projects get their nuget packages. This proxy server can backup the requested packages in some fashion, like storing them on a backed up folder and checking the content into a shared source control repository. Another scenario is to have the backup logic done automatically on each developer's machine.
In summary, what are some good automated options for backing up nuget packages?
You should look at Artifactory from JFrog (http://www.jfrog.com/): they recently added support for NuGet. Artifactory can act as a central cache for multiple NuGet feeds. I spoke to the development team at a conference earlier this year, and they're really switched on.
There is also ProGet, although I have not used this: http://inedo.com/proget/overview
I don't know of any existing backup solutions, but this is definitely something we'd like to solve at some point. A couple of ideas come to mind.
Use DropBox to backup the packages directory into another location.
Run your own instance of NuGet.org locally and have your CI server populate the local one with installed packages.
Use MyGet.org to host a private feed of all the packages your team has installed.