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First steps with .NET Core Tools MSBuild "alpha"

·518 words·3 mins·
dotnet msbuild
Carlos Mendible
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Carlos Mendible
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On November 16th, Microsoft announced the .NET Core Tools MSBuild"alpha". I’ve been developing .Net Core applications with Visual Studio Code for a while now, and I needed to try the new tooling.

In this post I’ll show you which were my First steps with .NET Core Tools MSBuild “alpha”

Installing .NET Core SDK 1.0 Preview 3 build 004056
#

The first step was to install the new tools from: .NET Core SDK 1.0 Preview 3 build 004056

Creating a Sample Console Application
#

Open a command prompt and run the following commands

    md test.msbuild
    cd test.msbuild
    dotnet new
    code .

Surprise Code shows two files and one is test.msbuild.csproj. Bye bye project.json!!!

There is no Intellisense for csproj files
#

This will make things difficult for a while but right now you have to forget about Intellisense and Autocomplete on your csproj file, which makes adding references a real pain.

The csproj file does not target .Net Core 1.1 by default
#

You’ll have to edit the csproj file to target .Net Core 1.1 (lines 6 and 16)

<Project ToolsVersion="15.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\$(MSBuildToolsVersion)\Microsoft.Common.props" />
  
  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp1.1</TargetFramework>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <Compile Include="**\*.cs" />
    <EmbeddedResource Include="**\*.resx" />
  </ItemGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.NETCore.App">
      <Version>1.1.0</Version>
    </PackageReference>
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
      <Version>1.0.0-alpha-20161104-2</Version>
      <PrivateAssets>All</PrivateAssets>
    </PackageReference>
  </ItemGroup>
  
  <Import Project="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />
</Project>

Create launch.json
#

Hit F5 and select .NET Core. Visual Studio Code will create a launch.json file and because the tooling is not yet fully supported you’ll have to edit the file manually with the following values

{
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": ".NET Core Launch (console)",
            "type": "coreclr",
            "request": "launch",
            "preLaunchTask": "build",
            "program": "${workspaceRoot}/bin/Debug/netcoreapp1.1/test.msbuild.dll",
            "args": [],
            "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
            "stopAtEntry": false,
            "externalConsole": false
        },
        {
            "name": ".NET Core Attach",
            "type": "coreclr",
            "request": "attach",
            "processId": "${command.pickProcess}"
        }
    ]
}

Create task.json
#

Hit F5 again and select .NET Core. Visual Studio Code will create a task.json file which you won’t have to modify.

{
    // See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=733558
    // for the documentation about the tasks.json format
    "version": "0.1.0",
    "command": "dotnet",
    "isShellCommand": true,
    "args": [],
    "tasks": [
        {
            "taskName": "build",
            "args": [ ],
            "isBuildCommand": true,
            "showOutput": "silent",
            "problemMatcher": "$msCompile"
        }
    ]
}

Restore packages
#

Run the following command from the Visual Studio Code terminal or the command prompt from step 1

    dotnet restore

Visual Studio Code won’t prompt automatically to restore so failing to run this step manually will prevent you from building the application.

Run and debug the application
#

Place a break point in line 7 of the Program.cs file

using System;

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
    }
}

Hit F5 and the program should stop at the break point and you are good to go!

Side by side with project.json tooling (no migration)
#

To be able to run my applications based on the project.json tools I had to add a global.json file in the root folder, with the following content

{
    "sdk": {
        "version": "1.0.0-preview2-1-003177"
    }
}

If you are not sure of which versions you have installed, just run the following powershell command:

ls $env:programfiles\dotnet\sdk

And change the value in the global.json file as desired.

Hope it helps!