Home: Nuget pack fails with multi-target csproj

[JeremyCaney]

A year or so ago, @mm6502 opened a bug report detailing how nuget pack would look in the wrong location for the build files when packing a multi-targeted project, resulting in an error similar to:

Error NU5012: Unable to find 'bin\release\{Project}\bin\release\'. Make sure the project has been built.

If you are going through the NuGet Pack task on Azure DevOps, the error will be wrapped as follows (related report):

[error]The nuget command failed with exit code(1) and error(Unable to find 'bin\release\{Project}\bin\release\'. Make sure the project has been built.)

This issue was closed since a workaround was provided. The workaround, however, is insufficient for the reasons detailed below; this should instead be reopened and treated as a bug.

Workaround

The workaround suggested was to use msbuild /t:pack instead. This is insufficient because:

• This is a bug; from the user perspective it is expected that nuget will work the same on multi-target projects as it does on single-target projects.
• Even if this is an expected limitation of the product, the error message is unintuitive, and especially since the source directory cannot be specified by the user.
• This is impacting downstream products, such as Azure DevOps (formerly Visual Studio Team Services).
• msbuild is not a comparable substitute, as it doesn't permit e.g. disabling the build, or specifying a version number (without extra tooling). It's also not the recommended approach for Azure DevOps.

Details about Problem

• NuGet product used: NuGet.exe
• NuGet version: 4.9.2
• dotnet.exe --version: 2.2.103 (N/A)
• VS version: 15.9.5 (N/A)
• OS version: win10 Pro v1809 (17763.253) (N/A)
• Worked before? If so, with which NuGet version: Unknown

Detailed repro steps so we can see the same problem

1. Create a new C# Class Library (.NET Standard) project targeting netstandard2.0.
2. Edit the csproj file to add target framework net4:
   <TargetFrameworks>net4;netstandard2.0</TargetFrameworks>
3. Build and pack with msbuild (to check the build passes and package is created):
   nuget restore
msbuild Test.csproj /t:Clean,Build,Pack /p:Configuration=Release
4. Pack with nuget:
   nuget pack Test.csproj -Build -p Configuration=Release
   > Note: The above are a condensed version of the steps originally reported by @mm6502.

Other suggested things

Verbose Logs

NuGet Version: 4.9.2.5706
Attempting to build package from 'Test.csproj'.
MSBuild auto-detection: using msbuild version '15.9.21.664' from 'C:\Apps\Development\IDEs\Visual Studio 2017\MSBuild\15.0\bin'. Use option -MSBuildVersion to force nuget to use a specific version of MSBuild.
Error NU5012: Unable to find 'bin\release\Test\bin\release\'. Make sure the project has been built.
NuGet.Packaging.Core.PackagingException: Unable to find 'bin\release\Test\bin\release\'. Make sure the project has been built.
   at NuGet.CommandLine.ProjectFactory.BuildProject()
   at NuGet.CommandLine.ProjectFactory.CreateBuilder(String basePath, NuGetVersion version, String suffix, Boolean buildIfNeeded, PackageBuilder builder)
   at NuGet.Commands.PackCommandRunner.BuildFromProjectFile(String path)
   at NuGet.Commands.PackCommandRunner.BuildPackage()
   at NuGet.CommandLine.PackCommand.ExecuteCommand()
   at NuGet.CommandLine.Command.ExecuteCommandAsync()
   at NuGet.CommandLine.Command.Execute()
   at NuGet.CommandLine.Program.MainCore(String workingDirectory, String[] args)

Sample Project

See @mm6502's original bug report for a sample project.

[chris-strauss]

Thanks for opening this issue. It's something that should be fixed.

[nkolev92]

@JeremyCaney

I believe that you may be some confusion about the resolution of that issue.

NuGet ships 2 implementations of pack.
The nuget.exe one, the primitive nuspec based pack, and the https://www.nuget.org/packages/NuGet.Build.Tasks.Pack/ or what's basically shipped with dotnet.exe.

The tooling for SDK based projects is dotnet.exe/targets pack.

The gap in question is the following issue https://github.com/NuGet/Home/issues/4491.

It's not about single vs multi tfm projects.
It's about nuget.exe and SDK based projects nuspecless.

Based on my above comments I'd like to dup this issue to https://github.com/NuGet/Home/issues/4491.

[nkolev92]

Closing per my above comment.

[cyberkito]

@JeremyCaney

I believe that you may be some confusion about the resolution of that issue.

NuGet ships 2 implementations of pack.
The nuget.exe one, the primitive nuspec based pack, and the https://www.nuget.org/packages/NuGet.Build.Tasks.Pack/ or what's basically shipped with dotnet.exe.

The tooling for SDK based projects is dotnet.exe/targets pack.

The gap in question is the following issue #4491.

It's not about single vs multi tfm projects.
It's about nuget.exe and SDK based projects nuspec_less_.

Based on my above comments I'd like to dup this issue to #4491.

I used dotnet pack and got my project packed up with multiple platforms. Nuget pack did not work.

[Njoro007]

How does one then change the Package Versioning, since Nuget Pack is not an option for multi-Targeting?

[warpedgeoid]

As @Njoro007 said, this is an issue for packages with versions derived from pipeline variables in, e.g., Azure DevOps.