To create .NET project of desired type we can use .NET Core command line tool (dotnet). Let's see the list of all possible project types:
$ dotnet new
Template Instantiation Commands for .NET Core CLI.
Usage: dotnet new [arguments] [options]
Arguments:
template The template to instantiate.
Options:
-l|--list List templates containing the specified name.
-lang|--language Specifies the language of the template to create
-n|--name The name for the output being created. If no name is specified, the name of the current directory is used.
-o|--output Location to place the generated output.
-h|--help Displays help for this command.
-all|--show-all Shows all templates
Templates Short Name Language Tags
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Console Application console [C#], F# Common/Console
Class library classlib [C#], F# Common/Library
Unit Test Project mstest [C#], F# Test/MSTest
xUnit Test Project xunit [C#], F# Test/xUnit
ASP.NET Core Empty web [C#] Web/Empty
ASP.NET Core Web App mvc [C#], F# Web/MVC
ASP.NET Core Web API webapi [C#] Web/WebAPI
Solution File sln Solution
Examples:
dotnet new mvc --auth None --framework netcoreapp1.1
dotnet new classlib
dotnet new --help
To create Console application project we have to use console:
$ dotnet new console -o TestProject -n HelloWorld
Content generation time: 54.4945 ms
The template "Console Application" created successfully.
This creates a directory TestProject and in it project named HelloWorld and intial source code file:
$ ls
TestProject
$ cd TestProject/
/TestProject$ ls
HelloWorld.csproj Program.cs
HelloWorld.csproj:
/TestProject$ cat HelloWorld.csproj
Program.cs:
/TestProject$ cat Program.cs
Let's now update dependencies (NuGet packages) and tools specified in the project:
/TestProject$ dotnet restore
Restoring packages for /home/bojan/Downloads/test/TestProject/HelloWorld.csproj...
Generating MSBuild file /home/bojan/Downloads/test/TestProject/obj/HelloWorld.csproj.nuget.g.props.
Generating MSBuild file /home/bojan/Downloads/test/TestProject/obj/HelloWorld.csproj.nuget.g.targets.
Writing lock file to disk. Path: /home/bojan/Downloads/test/TestProject/obj/project.assets.json
Restore completed in 492.24 ms for /home/bojan/Downloads/test/TestProject/HelloWorld.csproj.
NuGet Config files used:
/home/bojan/.nuget/NuGet/NuGet.Config
Feeds used:
https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json
This creates
obj directory and various config files:
/TestProject$ ls
HelloWorld.csproj obj Program.cs
/TestProject$ cd obj/
/TestProject/obj$ ls
HelloWorld.csproj.nuget.g.props HelloWorld.csproj.nuget.g.targets project.assets.json
HelloWorld.csproj.nuget.g.props:
/TestProject/obj$ cat HelloWorld.csproj.nuget.g.props
HelloWorld.csproj.nuget.g.targets:
/TestProject/obj$ cat HelloWorld.csproj.nuget.g.targets
project.assets.json:
/TestProject/obj$ cat project.assets.json
We can now build the project and run the binary output:
/TestProject$ dotnet run
Hello World!
This command built the project and placed binary output and other build artifacts in newly created
bin directory:
/TestProject$ ls
bin HelloWorld.csproj obj Program.cs
/TestProject$ cd bin
/TestProject/bin$ ls
Debug
/TestProject/bin$ cd Debug/
/TestProject/bin/Debug$ ls
netcoreapp1.1
/TestProject/bin/Debug$ cd netcoreapp1.1/
/TestProject/bin/Debug/netcoreapp1.1$ ls
HelloWorld.deps.json HelloWorld.dll HelloWorld.pdb HelloWorld.runtimeconfig.dev.json HelloWorld.runtimeconfig.json
.deps.json (dependencies JSON file) lists dependencies of the application:
/TestProject/bin/Debug/netcoreapp1.1$ cat HelloWorld.deps.json
.runtimeconfig.dev.json:
/TestProject/bin/Debug/netcoreapp1.1$ cat HelloWorld.runtimeconfig.dev.json
.runtimeconfig.json file specifies the shared runtime and its version for the application:
/TestProject/bin/Debug/netcoreapp1.1$cat HelloWorld.runtimeconfig.json
It might seem unexpected that the binary output is not .exe but .dll. This is because default .NET Core's deployment model is
Framework-dependent deployment, where output assembly contains only compiled source and 3rd party dependencies but not .NET Core dependencies - assembly assumes that .NET Core Framework and runtime are installed on the target machine. This is why we have to use
dotnet tool to run it:
/TestProject/bin/Debug/netcoreapp1.1$ dotnet HelloWorld.dll
Hello World!
The other type of deployment is
Self-contained deployment in which case the output assembly is .exe and contains .NET Core dependencies and runtime - nothing else is necessary to be installed on the target system.
References:
.NET Core application deployment
.NET Core command-line interface (CLI) tools
