How to force msbuild and nuget to pack the referenced Lib as dll?

Question

I have 2 Projects:
Project A is .Net Standard 2.0
Project B is .Net Framework 4.6.1

In B I reference to A like this (csproj):

 <ItemGroup>
<ProjectReference Include="A.csproj">
  <Project>{60DEB41B-8670-4199-95C2-FE68EB06B099}</Project>
  <Name>A</Name>
</ProjectReference>

Now when I pack a nuget of B, I can't access A because it doesnt resolve the dependency.

here are the commands, run by gitlab ci, to create the project B:

nuget restore
msbuild B.csproj
nuget pack -version $VERSION
dotnet nuget push **/*.nupkg ...

How to include the lib of A as DLL in B?

Have you tried adding -IncludeReferencedProjects option to nuget pack ? — Cem.S
Hi PassionateDeveloper, any update about this issue? Please check if my answer helps you handle the issue:) — Mr Qian

Mr Qian Mr Qian · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-26T03:01:28

Actually, adding a reference at the project level does not automatically add the corresponding reference dll during the packaging process. You need to add an additional dll to the nuget package manually.

I have two solutions:

Solution One

Just as Cem.S said, use -IncludeReferencedProjects to pack your project.

Also, since you pack a net framework nuget project, you only have to use nuget.exe cli to pack the project with the created nuspec file:

Use this command to pack your project B:

nuget pack xxx\B.csproj -IncludeReferencedProjects

Solution two

Or just add such node in B.nuspec file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<package >
  <metadata>
    <id>xxx</id>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
    <title>xxx</title>
    <authors>xxx</authors>
    .....
  </metadata>
  <files>
   <file src="xxx\xxx\A.dll" target="lib\net461" />
  <files>
</package>

Then, run nuget pack xxx\B.csproj to generate the new version.

Before you install the new version, you should first clean nuget caches first.

How to force msbuild and nuget to pack the referenced Lib as dll?

1 Answers