Important .NET CLI commands

ByAnkush Jain| Last Updated On Saturday, Feb 05, 2022

.NET

Disclaimer: I am a consultant at Amazon Web Services, and this is my personal blog. The opinions expressed here are solely mine and do not reflect the views of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Any statements made should not be considered official endorsements or statements by AWS.

While working with .NET Core, it sometimes makes your life easy if know a few important .NET CLI commands.

Here are some of the most commonly used .NET CLI commands.

General

// To check current .NET info
dotnet --info

// To check installed SDKs
dotnet --list-sdks

// To check installed runtimes
dotnet --list-runtimes

Restore

// To restore NuGet packages
dotnet restore

Implicit restore

You don't have to run dotnet restore because it's run implicitly by all commands that require a restore to occur, such as dotnet new, dotnet build, dotnet run, dotnet test, dotnet publish, and dotnet pack. To disable implicit restore, use the --no-restore option.

Create

// To create a new dotnet application
dotnet new <template> --output <output-directory>

//  To create a new console application
dotnet new console --output sample1

// To create a new web application
dotnet new webapp -o aspnetcoreapp

Build

// To build a solution
dotnet build solution.sln -c "Debug"

// To build a project
dotnet build project.csproj -c "Debug"

Publish

// To publish an application
dotnet publish -c "Release"

// To publish a project
dotnet publish "AccountingSoftware.API" -c "Release" -f "net6.0" --self-contained false

How does dotnet publish work

dotnet publish compiles the application, reads through its dependencies specified in the project file, and publishes the resulting set of files to a directory.

Run

// To run published app directly
dotnet MyApp.dll

// To run an application in debug mode
dotnet run [--project sample1] [--launch-profile "launch-profile-name"]

How does dotnet run work

• It first builds the project using dotnet build and then runs the app from the output directory bin/debug/netcoreapp3.1/MainApp.dll
• It uses a launch-profile to run the project.
• So command dotnet run = dotnet build + execute launch-profile command

How to debug apps running with dotnet run command

• To debug the app running in debug mode, use Attach to process in Visual Studio, and select the process with the name AssemblyName.exe.

That's all 🙂