CODEWITHSUNDEEP
.netasp.net-mvcnuget
virtualmic
virtualmic

Reputation: 3213

Nuget packages without nuget package manager?

What does a nuget package actually consist of, apart from the compiled libraries?

Is it possible to download these packages without using the package manager and use them elsewhere?

Thanks!

Upvotes: 16

Views: 14830

Answers (9)

Ohad Schneider
Ohad Schneider

Reputation: 38106

Referencing NuGet may work some (most?) of the time, but you may also run into versioning issues. For example, try adding the Microsoft HTTP Client Libraries NuGet package to a .NET 4 project and examine the resulting csproj file.

First, you'll notice that some of the BCL assemblies have been overriden:

  1. System.IO.dll
  2. System.Runtime.dll
  3. System.Threading.Tasks

And now all referencing projects have to use these overrides as well (since you can't reference multiple versions of the same assembly). Among other things, it means you lose updates to those assemblies (unless the BCL NuGet package is updated as well).

You will also notice your csproj contains the following entry (it won't work if you remove it):

<Import Project="..\packages\Microsoft.Bcl.Build.1.0.13\tools\Microsoft.Bcl.Build.targets" Condition="Exists('..\packages\Microsoft.Bcl.Build.1.0.13\tools\Microsoft.Bcl.Build.targets')" />

I am not knowledgable about MSBuild, but I'm guessing this could affect your build environment.

Upvotes: 0

Mike Lorenzana
Mike Lorenzana

Reputation: 506

Just so everyone knows, you can just create an account on nuget.org. Once logged in a download link will appear on the left toolbar that will allow you to directly download any .nupkg file.

Upvotes: 2

Fei Ling
Fei Ling

Reputation: 592

You can also use the command line tool nuget.exe to download the nupkg file, like this:

nuget install packageId

to get the latest version, or

nuget install packageId -Version version

to get the specific version.

Upvotes: -2

quintessential5
quintessential5

Reputation: 138

Sorry, this should be a comment, but I don't have enough rep.

Based on the html generated by the Chrome extension mentioned in this answer, we can improve gth685f's answer by noting that, to download packages that are not the latest, the URL is packages.nuget.org/api/v2/package/<PACKAGE_YOU_WANT>/<VERSION_NUMBER> (note the incremented API version number too).

Upvotes: 1

Anja
Anja

Reputation: 519

Additional comment: After downloading the *.zip (example jquery) change the ending from *.zip to *.nupkg and then you are able to install them with the Package Manager in VS. Perhaps it's just me who had to think about it for a while. If not, hope it helps.

Upvotes: 1

Colonel Panic
Colonel Panic

Reputation: 137544

Based on @Gth685's answer, I made a Google Chrome extension that adds download links to package pages on http://nuget.org

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nutake/ibhhbcaipjilldjkhhblhgdedjgoecap?hl=en

Upvotes: 7

Max
Max

Reputation: 1563

Just to add that the V2 api is the same format as V1 to download a package using your browser.

http://packages.nuget.org/api/v2/package//

Upvotes: 0

gth685f
gth685f

Reputation: 585

You can download them from http://packages.nuget.org/api/v1/package/<PACKAGE_YOU_WANT>/ using your browser.

You can get the package name from: http://packages.nuget.org/Packages

Example: jQuery UI (Combined Library) Package is at: http://packages.nuget.org/packages/jQuery.UI.Combined To download: http://packages.nuget.org/api/v1/package/jQuery.UI.Combined/

Upvotes: 29

Darin Dimitrov
Darin Dimitrov

Reputation: 1038730

What does a nuget package actually consist of, apart from the compiled libraries?

Take a look here. Basically it is a file with the .nupkg extension which is nothing more than a .zip file containing the structure explained in the previous link and some xml metadata.

Is it possible to download these packages without using the package manager and use them elsewhere?

Sure, simply download the .nupkg file.

Upvotes: 13

Related Questions