Creating NuGet package with reference to a non-NuGet reference

Question

I am creating a Class Library that builds 2 dlls into a NuGet package. It has a few references to dlls that currently do not have a NuGet package to be referenced from.

How should I make my NuGet package dependent on those dlls that are currently unavailable via NuGet?

If I bundle them up as well, what happens if a project that already has a reference to these dlls, pulls down my NuGet package, what happens to that reference?

Should I just create a NuGet package for each dll reference and make my NuGet package dependent on these?

Answer 1

You can bundle the DLLs into your NuGet package with no ill effects. A project that already has those DLLs in some /libs (or whatever) folder will continue to reference them from there. Assemblies in your NuGet package will reference the bundled DLLs that are pulled into /packages.

In your nuspec file, use the <file> element to include the internal DLLs, as such:

<package>
  <metadata>
    ...
  </metadata>
  <files>
   <file src="PATH_TO_BIN\DependencyOne.dll" target="mylibs" />
   <file src="PATH_TO_BIN\DependencyTwo.dll" target="mylibs" />
  </files>
</packages>

This will result in the following file structure when the NuGet package is pulled:

PATH_TO_PROJECT/packages/YOUR_NUGET_PACKAGE/mylibs/DependencyOne.dll
PATH_TO_PROJECT/packages/YOUR_NUGET_PACKAGE/mylibs/DependencyTwo.dll

The target attribute can specify any arbitrary path relative to your package root.