How to find out which .NET framework nuget package targets?

44
votes

I have C# project that has to target .NET 3.5. framework and I have several nuget packages I'd like to install in the given project.

How to find out, for a given nuget package, which .NET framework versions it supports (by version of package for example), without me trying to install every available version of the package in order to see if its installation will pass without rolling back because of the dependency of the given version of the package to .NET framework higher than 3.5.?

For example, I know that xUnit.net version 1.9.2. is the highest version that supports .NET 3.5, but I had to find out this "manually".

3
nugetnuget-package.net-framework-version
It seems like a pretty basic piece of information that should just be shown in the NuGet Gallery for a package...list all the supported frameworks and versions. I'm a bit confused as to why this hasn't been done. – Mike Marynowski
Filtering by target framework is an open issue github.com/NuGet/NuGetGallery/issues/2936 – Pedro

3 Answers

4
votes

Cannot comment on the previous answer, but the targetFramework attribute in packages.config is the .NET version of the project at the time that package was installed.

For example, I have two projects that use Newtonsoft.Json 9.0.1, and these are the lines in their respective packages.config files:

  <package id="Newtonsoft.Json" version="9.0.1" targetFramework="net452" />

and

  <package id="Newtonsoft.Json" version="9.0.1" targetFramework="net462" />
1
votes

packages.config should give you the version info

example

<package id="xunit" version="2.2.0-beta1-build3239" targetFramework="net46" />
  <package id="xunit.abstractions" version="2.0.0" targetFramework="net46" />
  <package id="xunit.assert" version="2.2.0-beta1-build3239" targetFramework="net46" />
  <package id="xunit.core" version="2.2.0-beta1-build3239" targetFramework="net46" />
  <package id="xunit.extensibility.core" version="2.2.0-beta1-build3239" targetFramework="net46" />
  <package id="xunit.extensibility.execution" version="2.2.0-beta1-build3239" targetFramework="net46" />
  <package id="xunit.runner.msbuild" version="2.2.0-beta1-build3239" targetFramework="net46" developmentDependency="true" />
  <package id="xunit.runner.visualstudio" version="2.2.0-beta1-build1144" targetFramework="net46" developmentDependency="true" />
0
votes

At the risk of upsetting the Stack admins for daring to submit a wrong answer... You can download the .nupkg file (https://www.nuget.org/packages > Download ) then unzip it. In the file you can find references to PlatformToolset, ToolsVersion which I was able to use to look up the specific version of the compiler. ("v110" = Visual C++ 2012, "v120" = Visual C++ 2013, etc. To get the framework you could use decompiler a tool like ILSpy to inspect included files to see what version they target.