NuGet pack is not packaging all files in the output directory. What am I missing?

Question

I'm trying to create a NuGet package from a .csproj. I have successfully compiled the project and the output folder contains all of the necessary files (my assembly and all of its dependencies). However, NuGet only seems to be placing the assembly created by the .csproj into the package and not any of its dependencies. My command line looks like this:

nuget pack MyProject.csproj -Property Configuration=Release

and my resulting .nupkg file only has my assembly in the lib folder. I have successfully gotten NuGet to work for other projects, but it just so happens that this project is referencing the Enterprise Library logging block, but it was NOT retrieved via NuGet. I'm not sure if that could be related to my problem or not.

Any thoughts on why it's not picking up the dependenices?

Answer 1

If you need to keep your nuspec file up-to-date automatically, its really just an XML file (as I'm sure you know) so there are some very nice tools you can use from MSBuild to automate nuspec creation/updates. Out of the box, MSBuild provides a few tasks that can update or transform XML, and I've used MSBuild Community Tasks to customize the initial nuspec. For example, the default nuspec contains a few lines with broilerplate that I don't need, so I use XmlUpdate tasks to delete them.

Although I have not looked into scanning the csproj file for non-nuget references, I think its likely possible with a little research. Here are some links to blog entries describing my experiences with NuGet automation, they may help you get a head start:

Creating Packages with NuGet the MSBuild Way - This article includes some basic NuSpec updates because the package described is not that different from the type of package NuGet already knows how to automate.

Manage Your MEF Parts With Nuget - This article includes some more complex updates to support distributing MEF parts as runtime-only references.

If you plan on doing this alot, don't want to mess with MSBuild, or just want to get back the behavior you liked from the pre-1360 version of ProjectFactory.cs, NuGet supports third-party extension through MEF. You could go into the source control and grab the earlier code that you liked and create a custom command (for example custompack) that provides that behavior. Then you could use it from the command line like so:

nuget custompack MyProject.csproj -Property Configuration=Release

I think this is a really cool aspect of NuGet but I haven't played with it myself yet. Here is an article that explains how to do it:

Extend NuGet Command Line

So even though David mentioned that NuGet is not designed to support this scenario, if the scenario is correct for you then you can go this route to extend NuGet to meet your needs.