Create nuget package with multiple DLLs

Question

You’ll run NuGet on a single project (or nuspec file), but it supports pointers to other projects via the file element. This element uses the names of your project’s References, so you avoid having to a) find the location of other project files, and b) copy files to a particular place as a post-build step.

Supposing you have a nuspec file for MyLibrary.Core.csproj, and it references MyLibrary.Extensions and MyLibrary.Tests such that they end up in the bin directory after a build:

<package xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2010/07/nuspec.xsd">
  <metadata>
    ...
  </metadata>
  <files>
    <file src="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7486651/bin\Release\MyLibrary.Extensions.dll" target="lib\net40" />
    <file src="bin\Release\MyLibrary.Tests.dll" target="lib\net40" />
  </files>
</package>

With this setup, all of your references should end up in the appropriate place in the NuGet package. You still have the hard-coded ‘Release’ in there, but I’d wager most probably don’t distribute NuGet packages of their debug builds anyway.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply