Get location of nuget package directory

Question

I am creating a nuget package, and I want to make sure that it will work in all scenarios.

In this case, I am adding build targets with the "Build" convention folder. The target that I am adding needs to know the location of the nuget packages folder.

A lot of the examples I have found assume that they can just use "..\Packages", but Nuget allows you to relocate the packages folder via the nuget.config file.

Is there a way to get the correct location of the nuget packages folder from within a build.targets file?

(background information)

I'm writing a package that needs to copy native dlls into the bin directory. I could use a post build event, but that seems a little hacky. I would rather include a target that invokes the msbuild <copy> task with SkipUnchangedFiles=true, however for that to work, I need to know the location of the packages folder.

Answer 1

From within the .targets file, you can access the current file's location using the $(MSBuildThisFileDirectory) property.

Assuming the .targets file is in the nuget build folder, you could get to its own package folder using relative paths like this:

<PropertyGroup>
    <ThisPackageDirectory>$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)..\</ThisPackageDirectory>
    ...

Answer 2

To solve the problem described in your background information section you have 2 steps.

A. Ensure the native dlls are copied to the project - edit a section of the nuspec to copy your files into the project root when the package is being built:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<package>
  <metadata>
    ...
  </metadata>
  <files>
    <file src="install.ps1" target="Tools"/>
    <file src="nativedll1.dll" target="content" />
    <file src="nativedll2.dll" target="content" />
  </files>
</package>

B. Create an install.ps1 file (note that I included it in the above sample) Your install.ps1 file should look something like this.

param($installPath, $toolsPath, $package, $project)

$file1 = $project.ProjectItems.Item("nativedll1.dll")
$file2 = $project.ProjectItems.Item("nativedll2.dll")

# set 'Copy To Output Directory' to 'Copy if newer'
$copyToOutput1 = $file1.Properties.Item("CopyToOutputDirectory")
$copyToOutput1.Value = 2

$copyToOutput2 = $file2.Properties.Item("CopyToOutputDirectory")
$copyToOutput2.Value = 2