Nuget Clean Package Remove/Install

Question

I'd like to remove an entire nuget package, and cleanly install it in my project again.

Sadly, for some reason it skips removing files that have been "modified", and then skips putting them in the project on reinstall, because they already exist.

Is there any flag i can set to unconditionally remove every single trace of a nuget package, alternatively overwrite all existing files?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Unfortunately at the moment, NuGet does not do what you want. During the uninstall process, NuGet will only delete content files if they have not been modified. And as you've noticed, the update process will not update files that were modified either.

The Uninstall-Package command does have a -Force option, but that is to "force" uninstall even if there are other packages that depend on this one.

We can certainly file this as an issue and perhaps incorporate it into a future version.

Another option would be to create a PowerShell script that will enumerate a package's contents, then allow you to delete all the content files. I'll see if there is a simple way to do this.

BTW: Perhaps you can figure out a better way to extend the existing content file other than modifying it directly. Especially since you're losing your changes when the package is updated.