razor-tooling/docs/contributing/ASPNetCore-Debugging.md

Debugging with experimental ASP.NET Core bits

Sometimes it may be necessary to make changes in dotnet/aspnetcore, and react to the changes in this repo. The following are steps which outline the general process in using ASP.NET Core development nupkgs with Razor Tooling.

Steps

1. Checkout dotnet/aspnetcore, and follow the initialization instructions in the Build From Source guide.

2. ./restore.cmd

3. Make the desired changes in dotnet/aspnetcore.

4. ./eng/build.cmd -pack. The -pack option causes the creation of NuGet packages.

5. You should see the generated packages in the aspnetcore\artifacts\packages\Debug\NonShipping directory. The packages should end with x.0.0-dev.nupkg where x is the current .NET version.

6. Open razor/NuGet.config and add the local package sources:

   • <add key="ASPNETCORE_SHIPPING" value="<PATH_TO_ASPNET_CORE_REPO>\artifacts\packages\Debug\Shipping\" />
   • <add key="ASPNETCORE_NONSHIPPING" value="<PATH_TO_ASPNET_CORE_REPO>\artifacts\packages\Debug\NonShipping\" />

7. Open razor/eng/Versions.props and note the version for MicrosoftCodeAnalysisRazorPackageVersion. Ex. 5.0.0-rc.1.20380.7.

8. Do a find in Versions.props for the version in step 7 and replace with x.0.0-dev.

9. Get the assembly version of the aspnetcore packages.

   1. Assembly version can be found by openning the .dll in ILSpy
      1. Ex. ~/.nuget\packages\microsoft.aspnetcore.razor.language\6.0.0-dev\lib\netstandard2.0.nuget\packages\microsoft.aspnetcore.razor.language\{VERSION}.0.0-dev\lib\netstandard2.0\Microsoft.AspNetCore.Razor.Language.dll
      2. This is likely going to be the dev version 42.42.42.42

10. Update the OldVersionUpperBound and NewVersion, of the Razor assemblies in src\Razor\src\Microsoft.VisualStudio.RazorExtension\AssemblyBindingRedirects.cs with the assembly version from the step above.

Notes

• ⚠️ Ensure you do not commit the changes to razor/NuGet.config & razor/eng/Versions.props!
• If you're still seeing build errors after performing the above steps, you may have to temporarily modify OldVersionUpperBound and NewVersion of the first five assemblies in AssemblyBindingRedirects.cs to match the assembly version of the aspnetcore packages above. You can find the assembly version by opening one of the packages with ILSpy or similar tool.
• If you find the old packages are still being used after this change, purge the nuget cache here: ~\.nuget\packages