dotnet-run command not working as expected

Question

I want to run my simple demo of .NET Core project in VS code. When I run dotnet build in my VS Code terminal, it works as expected. But the problem is, in the same project, when I run dotnet run then I get the following error:

Couldn't find a project to run. Ensure a project exists in C:\Users\hp\Desktop\HW-3\FirstTestApp, or pass the path to the project using --project.

This error is totally unexpected for me because this project should be working correctly, but it does not. I am actually not much familiar with VS Code.

And this is my demo project structure:

Answer 1

dotnet build will build using a solution file if one is present (the *.sln file).

dotnet run however requires a project file (*.csproj).

The easy fix is to just change into the project directory, and then run dotnet run again.

cd C:\Users\hp\Desktop\HW-3\FirstTestApp\FirstTestApp
dotnet run

The documentation for dotnet build and dotnet run sort of makes this clear - the dotnet build [<PROJECT>|<SOLUTION>] command clearly can accept a project or solution file, whereas dotnet run [--project <PATH>] can only accept a project file.

If you are completely new to C# then I will just briefly explain that a .csproj project file is the file that tells the build toolchain how to build the project - it does the same job as a makefile, ant file, pom.xml file, or the main file from any other build system.

The solution file basically just links together several projects into a single solution such that opening the solution file in your editor (VS or VS Code) causes the projects to be loaded as well.