How to specify output directory for nuget binaries?

Question

I have a nuget package which has .dlls files that it automatically copies to a directory when the program is compiled. Is there a way to specify where the dlls files will be copied to?

I know it's possible to modify the .targets file of the package but assume I don't have access to the package. The project is managed through git so I'd rather not have to distribute binaries along with the licenses included in the package. Currently when someone downloads/compiles the source, the nuget package is automatically downloaded through nuget restore. Is there a way to override the .targets file of the package?

I'd prefer not to use scripts to manage the dll files if possible. Also this is for a C++ project and I know nuget has restrictions based on the languages used.

Answer 1

If your question is asking if there's a simple configuration file or something similar where you can write "copy contents of package X to location Y", then no.

To most people, the difference between the various components in the build system are not important, so it doesn't matter to them if NuGet copies something or their project's SDK copies something, or MSBuild copies something. However, since you're now trying to do something more advanced, these differences may be important. NuGet only writes/copies files at restore (and therefore only to the packages folder, not the project output folder), but after restore, NuGet doesn't run at all. NuGet just makes the files known to the rest of the build system, and those components are responsible for deciding what to do. For example, where to copy files.

Since both C++ and .NET projects use MSBuild, the same debugging techniques can be used. From a "developer command prompt", build your project using the -bl switch to generate a "msbuild.binlog" file. You can open this file with the MSBuild structured log viewer. You can then use the search to find where in the build each dll is copied, and what the copy arguments (including destination) is. You can also look to find where the item that defined the file to be copied was created. Then, you can write an MSBuild target in your project file (or another file that gets imported by your project file) that runs at an appropriate time and updates the item to set the destination you want the file to be copied to. But, MSBuild is a scripting language, and you said you didn't want to write a script, so you might not like this approach. And if you're not already knowledgeable about MSBuild scripting, it's probably more effort than writing a powershell script. But at least it would happen automatically as part of the build (and therefore happen when you build and debug in Visual Studio), and not be some other process that needs to be manually run.