Dotnet Tool Creation
As part of my development I wanted a way to easily use my EventHorizon.Blazor.TypeScript.Interop.Generator package, to do this I created a .NET Core Command Line Interface Tool. In this article I will go over how you too can create a simple tool of your own.
Checkout the How To section for the code.
Example Tool Project: EventHorizon.Blazor.TypeScript.Interop.Tool
What is a Tool
A tool is a Command Line Interface keyword that runs some functionality. In my case I wanted a tool that would make it easy to create my Generated code for interfacing with the JavaScript layer from C# in the context of a Blazor WASM application. To do this I used a simple console application, but using the .NET Core tools functionality I was able to create an console package that would run when called by a command of my choosing.
Usage
The usage for a Tool is quite limitless, what ever you can put into a .NET Core console application, you can turn into a tool. My example will be a very simple echo command, but your imagination is the limit here.
How to
To start you will need two thinks, .NET Core SDK installed and to create a console application.
# Create a dotnet console app
dotnet new console -o MyTool
It should generate a Program.cs similar to this:
using System;
namespace MyTool
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
}
}
}
Update the Program.cs to this:
using System;
namespace MyTool
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
// Validate input
if (args.Length == 0)
{
// Show some help text
Console.WriteLine("Pass in any text");
return;
}
// Display first item
Console.WriteLine(args[0]);
}
}
}
You can use the few commands below:
# nothing passed in
> dotnet run
nothing to show
# hi passed in
> dotnet run -- hi
hi
# Two arguments passed in
> dotnet run -- hi hello
hi
# A single argument string passed in
> dotnet run -- "hi hello"
hi hello
Enabled the Project as a Tool
To setup the project as a tool you only have to add a few attributes to the csproj file:
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
<PropertyGroup>
<OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
<TargetFramework>net5.0</TargetFramework>
<!-- Tell "dotnet pack" that this should show up in NuGet as a tool -->
<PackAsTool>true</PackAsTool>
<!-- Give your tool a custom short name for easier usage -->
<ToolCommandName>mytool</ToolCommandName>
</PropertyGroup>
</Project>
References
Checkout Microsoft for a more encompassing tutorial: How to manage .NET Core tools
