I’ve been getting a lot of questions about doing NuGet things in StudioShell. It would seem simple enough: import the NuGet PowerShell package into the StudioShell environment, and use the functions defined there. Unfortunately it’s not that simple. The NuGet module is tightly bound to the Package Manager Console host in the module’s PSD1 definition file:
# ...
# Name of the Windows PowerShell host required by this module
PowerShellHostName = 'Package Manager Host'
# Minimum version of the Windows PowerShell host required by this module
PowerShellHostVersion = '1.2'
# ...
In other words, you won’t be able to import the NuGet module outside of the Package Manager Console. This seems rather arbitrary to me, especially considering the fact that the module itself doesn’t do anything that mandates any specific host, just that the host environment contains the $dte variable reference to the Visual Studio Application object. Anyhoodle, I digress, and shall save the rest of the rant for another post.
So how does one combine the awesome sauce of StudioShell with the utility of NuGet? Well, you may not be able to bring NuGet into StudioShell, but you can certainly bring StudioShell to into the Package Manager Console. Recent releases of StudioShell include specialized support for the Package Manager console. This allows you to use the two in tandem, and this post describes some of the crazy things you can do.
At the 2014 NA PowerShell Summit, I did a talk on using the P2F project to develop providers. At the start of that talk, I ran a single command in the PM console:
new-providerProject -name TypeProvider
The command automates the process of setting up a new P2F provider project; specifically, it does all of the following:
- Creates a new C# class library project.
- Adds an assembly reference to System.Management.Automation to the new project.
- Installs the P2F NuGet package into the newly created project.
- Modifies the project’s debug settings to launch PowerShell.exe with a command line that imports the project’s binary into the PowerShell session.
- Sets the new project as the solution’s current startup project.
- Enables NuGet package restore on the solution.
Here’s the function definition in its entirety:
import-module studioshell.provider
import-module studioshell.contrib
function new-providerProject( $name )
{
# create the project
new-item "dte:\solution\projects\$name" -type classlibrary -language csharp
# add necessary references
new-item "dte:\solution\projects\$name\references" -type assembly -name System.Management.Automation
# install the P2F nuget pacakge
install-package "P2F" -project $name;
# configure the project settings
$project = get-item "dte:\solution\projects\$name"
$project.configurationmanager | foreach {
$_.properties.item('startprogram').value =
"c:\windows\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe"
$_.properties.item('startarguments').value =
'-noexit -command "ls *.dll | ipmo"'
$_.properties.item('startaction').value = 1
}
# set this project as the startup project
$dte.solution.projects.item("StartupProject").value = $project.name;
# enable nuget package restore
enable-nugetPackageRestore;
}The first two lines import the necessary StudioShell modules; StudioShell.Provider is the simplified NuGet distribution of the DTE provider, and StudioShell.Contrib is a community contribution module with useful wrappers around common StudioShell uses.
The first line of the function creates a new C# class library project:
# create the project
new-item "dte:\solution\projects\$name" -type classlibrary -language csharp
Here we use the common PowerShell item cmdlets against the StudioShell DTE provider, specifying a path under the solution’s projects tree where we want the project to be created. The value for the type parameter often confounds people; that is, you may not be sure what value to use here. StudioShell has your back – you can find a list of the project templates for various languages under the dte:/templates/projects path.
The next line modifies the assembly references for the new project:
# add necessary references
new-item "dte:\solution\projects\$name\references" -type assembly -name System.Management.Automation
Again, just using the standard new-item cmdlet at the right path does the trick. At the project’s references folder, the type parameters can be “assembly”, “project”, or “com”, depending on the type of reference you’re adding. The name parameter specifies the assembly name, project name, or COM ProgId to reference.
Next, we leverage the NuGet module to install the P2F package:
install-package "P2F" -project $name
This command should look familiar if you’re a NuGet user. If not, you’re using NuGet wrong and should feel bad. This command does a lot of magic stuff – it pulls the P2F package from the main NuGet repository, modifies the project references, and so forth. All that NuGet-ish stuff, in just one little command.
Now comes an ugly part. Whenever I’m making a new PowerShell provider, I want to set up the project debuggery so that it launches PowerShell with a specific command line. In the UI, I would go into the project properties debug tab and make the necessary modifications. In the PM console, I accomplish the same thing as follows:
$project = get-item "dte:\solution\projects\$name"
$project.configurationmanager | foreach {
$_.properties.item('startprogram').value = "c:\windows\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe"
$_.properties.item('startarguments').value = '-noexit -command "ls *.dll | ipmo"'
$_.properties.item('startaction').value = 1
}Honestly it took me a little while to find the specific property names I needed to modify. And I see how ugly and unhelpful this code is, so I’ve added project properties to the DTE drive topology for the upcoming release of StudioShell. So, HOORAY ME and you owe me a beer if you’re reading this.
And while I’m in the ugly bits, I set the solution-level property that marks this project as the startup project:
$dte.solution.projects.item("StartupProject").value = $project.name;Again, this code is going away in favor of new DTE hives for solution properties. Again, more beer is owed by you to me.
Finally, we have a little extra NuGet magic. This one’s been on my plate to share for a while, but special thanks go to Attila Hajdrik for kicking me in the seat to get it done. This last command will enable the NuGet package restore for the solution, if it is not already enabled:
# enable nuget package restore
enable-nugetPackageRestore;
The code behind this command taps in to the bottomless well of woe that is the Visual Studio service provider model. I’m not going into the details of the implementation, but you can see Attila's approach in this gist. Because I do this enough that I want to keep it simple to automate, I’ve added Attila’s implementation to the StudioShell.Contrib project.
So there you have it: using StudioShell to manage projects, and NuGet to manage package references, all in one big automated pile of bytes.