Question

I’m creating the package for my assembly but I dont’ want to include the docs/*.xml files in my nuget package. I have tried the -Exclude switch of the pack command and the exclude property for the files section in the nuspec file to explictly excluding these files. None of these worked. So every time I generate my nuget package and then test it by installing it in the target project it always adds a docs folder with all the xml files. How can I avoid that the xml files are included into the nuget package? Any help would be highly appreciated.

Answer 1

Thank you Matt, I’m already doing what you mentioned but seems to me that Nuget does some other things by convention. Even if I use the exclude just like you said the docs folder is included. I resolved the issue by generating the nuspec file with the -a switch (I was using my .csproj file). I also had to copy the .dll file to a folder outside of my solution’s folder. This way everything worked fine and as expected.

Anyway your answer is accurate but in my scenario it wasn’t working. Not sure if this is by design.
Here’s my final msbuild file which I’m currently using to generate the package. Hopefully Nuget soon will add more switches to the spec command so we won’t have to modify so much the nuspec file afterwards.

<Project DefaultTargets="NugetPackage" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">  

<PropertyGroup>
 <Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration>
 <OutputPathCore>NugetPkgs\$(Configuration)\My.Assembly</OutputPathCore>
 <NuGetExePath>assets\nuget.exe</NuGetExePath>     

<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\MSBuildCommunityTasks\MSBuild.Community.Tasks.Targets"/>

<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\ExtensionPack\4.0\MSBuild.ExtensionPack.tasks"/>

<Target Name="NugetPackage" DependsOnTargets="PackageClean;BuildNugetPackageMyAssembly">   

<Target Name="PackageClean">  
<RemoveDir Directories ="NugetPkgs\$(Configuration)" ContinueOnError ="true"/>  

<Target Name="BuildNugetPackageMyAssembly">   
   <MakeDir Directories="$(OutputPathCore)" />
   <MakeDir Directories="$(OutputPathCore)\Package" />
   <MakeDir Directories="$(OutputPathCore)\lib\net40" />
   <MakeDir Directories="$(OutputPathCore)\lib\net20" />      
   <MakeDir Directories="$(OutputPathCore)\lib\net20-cf" />   

   <Copy
       DestinationFolder="$(OutputPathCore)\lib\net40" 
       SourceFiles="Source\My.Assembly\bin\$(Configuration)\My.Assembly.dll" />

    <Copy
       DestinationFolder="$(OutputPathCore)\lib\net20" 
       SourceFiles="VS2008\Source\My.Assembly\bin\$(Configuration)\My.Assembly.dll" />

    <Copy
       DestinationFolder="$(OutputPathCore)\lib\net20-cf" 
       SourceFiles="VS2008\Source\My.Assembly.CF\bin\$(Configuration)\My.Assembly.CF.dll" />

   <Copy DestinationFolder="$(OutputPathCore)\content" SourceFiles="CHANGES" />

   <Copy SourceFiles="Release Notes.txt" DestinationFiles="$(OutputPathCore)\Readme.txt" />

   <Exec Command="&quot;$(NuGetExePath)&quot; spec -a  &quot;$(OutputPathCore)\lib\net40\My.Assembly.dll&quot;" />              

    <XmlUpdate Namespace="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2010/07/nuspec.xsd" XmlFileName="My.Assembly.nuspec" XPath="//package/metadata/licenseUrl" Value="http://someurl" />          
    <XmlUpdate Namespace="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2010/07/nuspec.xsd" XmlFileName="My.Assembly.nuspec" XPath="//package/metadata/projectUrl" Value="http://someurl" />          
    <XmlUpdate Namespace="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2010/07/nuspec.xsd" XmlFileName="My.Assembly.nuspec" XPath="//package/metadata/iconUrl" Value="http://somenice.png" />            
    <XmlUpdate Namespace="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2010/07/nuspec.xsd" XmlFileName="My.Assembly.nuspec" XPath="//package/metadata/tags" Value="My.Assembly" />           
    <XmlUpdate Namespace="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2010/07/nuspec.xsd" XmlFileName="My.Assembly.nuspec" XPath="//package/metadata/releaseNotes" Value="Review readme.txt for details." />  

<ItemGroup>      
  <file Include="Source\My.Assembly\bin\$(Configuration)\My.Assembly.dll"/>
  <file Include="VS2008\Source\My.Assembly\bin\$(Configuration)\My.Assembly.dll"/>    
  <file Include="$(OutputPathCore)\Readme.txt"/>
</ItemGroup>

<MSBuild.ExtensionPack.Xml.XmlFile TaskAction="RemoveElement" File="My.Assembly.nuspec" Element="dependencies" XPath="//package/metadata/dependencies" />

<MSBuild.ExtensionPack.Xml.XmlFile TaskAction="AddElement" File="My.Assembly.nuspec" Key="" Value="" Element="files" XPath="//package" InsertAfterXPath="//package" />
<MSBuild.ExtensionPack.Xml.XmlFile TaskAction="AddElement" File="My.Assembly.nuspec" Key="src" Value="%(file.Identity)" Element="file" XPath="//package/files" />

<MSBuild.ExtensionPack.Xml.XmlFile TaskAction="AddAttribute" File="My.Assembly.nuspec" XPath="//package/files/*[1]"  Key="target" Value="lib\net40" />
<MSBuild.ExtensionPack.Xml.XmlFile TaskAction="AddAttribute" File="My.Assembly.nuspec" XPath="//package/files/*[2]"  Key="target" Value="lib\net20" />  
<MSBuild.ExtensionPack.Xml.XmlFile TaskAction="AddAttribute" File="My.Assembly.nuspec" XPath="//package/files/*[3]"  Key="target" Value=""/>


<Exec Command="&quot;$(NuGetExePath)&quot; pack My.Assembly.nuspec -OutputDirectory &quot;$(OutputPathCore)\Package&quot; -NoPackageAnalysis" />

<Delete Files ="My.Assembly.nuspec" />