Use local source code of NuGet package to debug and edit code

Question

I have a solution with an application project (ASP.NET Core) and multiple library projects. I want to separate some of the library projects into a separate solution and turn them into NuGet packages.

With the libraries in the same solution I could of course simply edit something in a library, run the application and see how it works (and debug, if necessary).

However, when I turn the libraries into a NuGet package, the application references the packages from our private NuGet feed instead of the project file.

My question is: is it possible to locally "override" the package reference and use the local source code instead? That way I could still edit the libraries and see the effects in the application. This is a lot easier than having to publish a new package for every small change (especially when trying to fix an issue or implementing a new feature).

Answer 1

DNT (Dot Net Tools) does this. You can specify which packages to switch and where they are.

See the 'switch-to-packages' and 'switch-to-projects' command line switches.

Its a bit fiddley as (when I last tried) you had to create a config file that holds the mapping, and it seems to be easy to break the switching. But its something.

https://github.com/RicoSuter/DNT

I've not tried it, but maybe you can use it to switch to packages on a commit for the build server to work correctly? (Or to ensure the references are correct in source control?)

Answer 2

If you want to use nuget in your project and debug, even modify the source files of the nuget packages, this is not a good choice because you should build the nuget project(generate the new changed dll) and repack it as a nuget package, then reinstall, to enable the changes. It is too complex.

Once you install the nuget, no matter how many changes you make, it’s useless. The nuget installed at this time is the version you made before any changes. No matter how you change it, it is the previous version. The version stays at that timestamp, unless you repackage the project. Generate nupkg and update the nuget version.

So nuget is not a good choice for your situation, you should use ProjectReference.

Directly use the ProjectReference to reference two source projects, build at the same time, and get the changed parts at the same time.

ProjectReference could cross two different solutions.

Add this on the main project:

<ItemGroup>
     <!--add any nuget project'csproj file like this to debug its source code-->
      <ProjectReference Include="..\xxx\xxx.csproj"> 
      </ProjectReference>     
</ItemGroup>

If the proejct is out of the solution, you could directly use the full path of the nuget project's csproj to connect it.