Nu-Get & issue with project level dependences for projects referenced by multiple solutions

Question

I'm trying to figure out what the best way to handle this scenario is.

Let's say I have a library that's referenced by multiple different non-related solutions, let's call it WebServiceInterface.dll. This library has a dependency on JSON.NET.

Before NuGet

The JSON.NET binary was referenced via a SVN external in the WebServiceInterface project. Other solutions which had a dependency on WebServiceInterface referenced the project (also as an SVN external) and as a result pulled both the project, and it's dependencies.

With NuGet

I haven't figured out how to force the JSON.NET reference to be stored under the WebServiceInterface project (as opposed to the RandomSolution\packages location). I found reference @ nu-get to project-level and solution-level pacakges, but I can't seem to find out how to specify this when I add a dependency via nu-get.

The goal here is that when someone checks out WebServiceInterface and adds it to a new solution that it builds (instead of having broken references to JSON.NET which point to the packages directory under whatever the last solution was that checked in).

Answer 1

When I went to find out if Chris B had created a NuGet issue for this, I couldn't find one. EDIT: He did, see his comment below. But I did find a semi-documented feature of NuGet that I used to solve this problem: Allow specifying the folder where packages are installed

Let me break this question into 2 issues:

1. getting NuGet to allow for multiple solutions to use the same packages location
2. getting the NuGet packages to automagically fetch from source control when you include a project that has NuGet packages

Problem 1: By default NuGet stores packages in a packages folder in the solution's folder. To change that location, create a nuget.config file in the solution's root folder with the following contents:

<settings>
<repositoryPath>..\..\..\Utilities\Library\nuget.packages</repositoryPath>
</settings>

<repositoryPath> is relative to your solution; so obviously make it whatever you want. Make each solution have it's own relative path to the same packages folder.

As far as NuGet's flow, from that point, the paths in repositories.config are relative to the folder containing repositories.config, not the solution, so now all projects/packages are managed independent of the solution location.

This allows multiple solutions to use the same packages in source control, and if those solutions use the same projects (that use NuGet packages), those solutions/projects will all be kept in sync no matter which solution updates the package.

Problem 1 completely solved.

Problem 2:

Let me address this from 2 perspectives. This applies to Visual Studio and TFS -- I'll leave SVN for someone else to address.

First: if you have no source code on your drive and do a get of a solution (not a project), I prefer to make it so that you get everything that solution needs to build. There shouldn't be any missing references to go manually grab. That much we can do by adding the package files as solution items. Yes, in each solution. A bit of work, yes, but when it's done the package files will fetch/update from source control automagically.

Second: In a new solution, when you include an existing source control project that has NuGet packages, you have to manually fetch the packages from source control and add them as solution items. At least anyone else getting your solution in the future will automagically get everything they need to successfully build. At least with VS/TFS, this is just the way it is, AFAIK. If projB depends on projA, and you add projB to a new solution, VS/TFS won't automatically grab projA from TFS. You have to do that manually. So then the same goes for dll references (like NuGet packages).

Summary of my solution:

• Only one copy of packages in source control for all solutions
• Any solution can update packages and all the other solutions will be kept in sync*

* Once one solution updates packages to new paths or file names, they will appear as missing references to the other solutions and you'll have to manually clean that up. But at least you know right where the packages are in source control "(as opposed to the RandomSolution\packages location)."

Answer 2

The packages are always stored at the solution level, so if you install a package into multiple projects, they came from the same place. I don't believe you can configure it so that each project has its own packages folder.

I'm not sure there's a nice way to do what you're trying. You could maybe have a build step on the project that fetches the package, but I don't know how well that will suit you.

I'd recommend posting in the NuGet Issue Tracker to get a discussion going. The people working on it seem pretty active, so it might be something they can add support for in a future version :-)