dotnet-add-reference(1)

💖 dotnet-add-reference(1) — the .NET Documentation glow-up 💖

okay bestie, welcome to dotnet-add-reference(1), straight out of the .NET Documentation ✨

this one applies to: ✔️ .NET Core 3.1 SDK and later versions 🌈

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✨ NAME ✨

dotnet-add-reference — adds project-to-project (P2P) references 💅

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

dotnet add [<PROJECT>] reference [-f|--framework <FRAMEWORK>]
     [--interactive] <PROJECT_REFERENCES>

dotnet add reference -h|--help

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

dotnet add reference is literally the convenient little shortcut for adding project references to a project 🎀 After you run it, the <ProjectReference> elements get added to the project file. no cap.

<ItemGroup>
  <ProjectReference Include="app.csproj" />
  <ProjectReference Include="..\lib2\lib2.csproj" />
  <ProjectReference Include="..\lib1\lib1.csproj" />
</ItemGroup>

💜 Add a reference to an assembly that isn't in a project

not me telling you the tea: there's no CLI command to add a reference to an assembly that isn't in a project or a package 😭

but you can still do it yourself, bestie — just edit your .csproj file and add markup like this:

<ItemGroup>
  <Reference Include="MyAssembly">
    <HintPath>.\MyDLLFolder\MyAssembly.dll</HintPath>
  </Reference>
</ItemGroup>

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🎀 ARGUMENTS 🎀

• PROJECT

specifies the project file 📁 if you don't specify it, the command goes looking for one in the current directory 🔍

• PROJECT_REFERENCES

the project-to-project (P2P) references you wanna add 💖 specify one or more projects. glob patterns (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glob_(programming)) are supported on Unix/Linux-based systems 🐧

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -f, --framework <FRAMEWORK> — adds project references only when targeting a specific framework, using the TFM format 🎯
• -?, -h, --help — prints out a description of how to use the command 🙋♀️
• --interactive — lets the command stop and wait for user input or action, like for completing authentication 🔐 available since .NET Core 3.0 SDK ⭐

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🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

1. add a project reference:

dotnet add app/app.csproj reference lib/lib.csproj

2. add multiple project references to the project in the current directory:

dotnet add reference lib1/lib1.csproj lib2/lib2.csproj

3. add multiple project references using a globbing pattern on Linux/Unix:

dotnet add app/app.csproj reference **/*.csproj

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and that's the whole vibe, bestie 🫶 go add those references, you're gonna eat 💅✨

this page was served fresh on 2024-10-02 as part of dotnet-add-reference(1) from the .NET Documentation set 🎀 tysm for reading, mwah 😘