Self-Contained Single-File does not produce a single file

Question

I have a small .Net 5 console application with no dependencies on third party components.
I have set it up to publish as a self-contained single-file.
However, in the publish directory is the EXE file and four DLLs. The EXE file will not run without those DLLs being present.
The DLLs are:

clrcompression.dll
clrjit.dll
coreclr.dll
mscordaccore.dll

Why is it Visual Studio does not understand single in Single-File publish ?

Andy

Answer 1

You need use IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract or IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract.

Either use it like this in the .Net CLI:

dotnet publish -r win-x64 /p:PublishSingleFile=true /p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true --self-contained true  

Either add it in the projectName.csproj file:

 <IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract>true</IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract>  

In this way, there will be only one exe file and one pdb file after release.

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Answer 2

the <IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract> tell the publish, that you want the dll extracted during publish (required to debug). do not do this if you want a single file. also you need to supply a runtime.

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">  
  <PropertyGroup>  
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>  
    <TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>  
    <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>  
    <Nullable>enable</Nullable>  
    <PublishSingleFile>true</PublishSingleFile>  
    <RuntimeIdentifier>osx.12-arm64</RuntimeIdentifier>  
  </PropertyGroup>  
</Project>  

Note: for MacOs the Mac app bundler format is used, so there are fewer restrictions than windows.

Answer 3

try as following with .Net core 6.0.*

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">  
  <PropertyGroup>  
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>  
    <TargetName>trade-plus</TargetName>  
    <TargetFramework>net6.0-windows</TargetFramework>  
    <RuntimeIdentifier>win-x64</RuntimeIdentifier>  
    <PlatformTarget>x64</PlatformTarget>  
    <AssemblyName>app-assembly-name</AssemblyName>  
    <Version>1.0.0.1</Version>  
    <FileVersion>1.0.0.1</FileVersion>  
    <Platforms>x64</Platforms>  
  </PropertyGroup>  
  <PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Release|x64'">  
    <PlatformTarget>x64</PlatformTarget>  
    <Optimize>True</Optimize>  
    <DebugType>none</DebugType>  
  </PropertyGroup>  
  <PropertyGroup>  
    <ProduceReferenceAssembly>False</ProduceReferenceAssembly>  
  </PropertyGroup>  
</Project>  

and run this command at respective project directory dotnet publish -r win-x64 -c Release -o bin/win-x64/native /p:SelfContained=true /p:PublishSingleFile=true /p:PublishReadyToRun=true
read more Single-file deployment and executable