How can I publish XML documentation with a .net core web application?

Question

In the csproj file I've enabled XML documentation generation via the following tag:

  <PropertyGroup>
    <DocumentationFile>bin\xml\Project.Api.xml</DocumentationFile>
    <NoWarn>1701;1702;1705;1591;1573</NoWarn>
  </PropertyGroup>

This works and correctly builds xml docs. Now I need this XML file to be distributed with the application (for Swagger support among other things). So I added the following:

  <ItemGroup>
    <None Update="bin\xml\Project.Api.xml">
      <CopyToPublishDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToPublishDirectory>      
    </None>
  </ItemGroup>

However, when I publish to a folder (or to azure) the XML doc is no where to be found.

What am I missing?

Evk · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-20 20:25:11Z

3

The following works for me in your scenario (at least when publishing to folder):

  <!-- Run before PrepareForPublish target -->
  <Target Name="CopyDocumentationFile" BeforeTargets="PrepareForPublish">
    <ItemGroup>      
      <DocFile Include="$(DocumentationFile)" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <!--just copy doc file to target location -->
    <Copy SourceFiles="@(DocFile)" DestinationFolder="$(PublishDir)" SkipUnchangedFiles="true" />
  </Target>

Here you can find docs about how to include custom files into publish output in general. They use more complicated way, but just a little bit more.

answered Mar 20, 2017 at 20:25

Evk

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2 Comments

Eric Erhardt Over a year ago

Also see github.com/dotnet/sdk/issues/795 asking for this support in the core tooling. It also has a few workarounds listed.

Jim Aho Over a year ago

Is this the preferred way in .NET Core 3.1 too?

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