Missing assembly reference - ensure VS creates a .config file for my nuget package

Question

I've created a nuget package including just 1 .dll.

To test installation of the .nupkg, I

• create a C# console application in VS
• add a local feed pointing to my package directory
• install my package from there
• start typing in main...

The problem is, if I do this:

using System;
using MyNamespace;

namespace tester
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            MyClass.MyStaticMethod()

            Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
        }
    }
}

the line MyClass.MyStaticMethod() says I'm missing an assembly reference, and using MyNamespace; is an unnecessary declaration.

Reading around, this seems to originate from the fact that my nuget package installs to the global packages location: %Current_User%.nuget.\packages, and the .csproj file includes:

  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="MyPackage" Version="1.0.0" />
  </ItemGroup>

Is there a way I can ensure all consumers of my package create a packages.config file, and not install my package to the global packages location?

Can I specify this in the .nuspec file somewhere?

Answer 1

The packages.config way is basically the classic (read: "old") way to reference NuGet packages and has since been superseeded by the PackageReference way of referencing packages. You should make sure your package is compatible with PackageReference.

If you don't increase the version number of your package every time you build it and want to try it out in a project, it won't see the update.

Either increase the version or clear your local NuGet packages cache using dotnet nuget locals clear all.

If the DLL is still not being referenced (check the dependencies node that VS shows you in the solution explorer), then your package may not contain the DLL in the expected place (e.g. lib\netstandard2.0 folder if your source project was a .NET Standard 2.0 library)