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Hi there. I am learning C# with visual studio. I recently discovered about nuget and the benefits that it provide. But, I am really curious to know does it stores the links or details about the sources from where it downloads the packages. After light digging around myself, I was able to find out the visual studio shows sources in the package manager setting. Also, I was able to find that I can print out the sources in console by using dotnet cli. But, I am really curious to know, is there are any configuration file or something like that where it stores all the information and where it is.
I will be really grateful to you if you kind answer my queries. Thanks in advance.
The author of a package sets properties under project properties and target Frameworks (read this page) and this page, manifest and package configuration file. Also see How NuGet resolves package dependencies.
There are also PowerShell commands and arguments
Internally on NuGet a private database stored all package details.
I am extremely sorry, probably my question was not clear.
Please take a look at this image. As you can see, after running the "dotnet nuget list source" command, it outputted the sources from where nuget will get the packages. I wanted to know where does nuget stores this details.
As mentioned in my original reply on NuGet details are stored in a database and locally package references are stored without details in the project file in a ItemGroup.
Also, NuGet stores package information under C:\Users\xxxxx\.nuget\packages
Thank you for the reply. I have recently came across a stackoverflow post where someone was talking about Nuget.config file in "%AppData%/Roaming/Nuget/Nuget.config", which contains this text:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<packageSources>
<add key="nuget.org" value="https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json" protocolVersion="3" />
</packageSources>
</configuration>
If you don't mind can you explain me what is the use of this file?
Which is what I pointed to already
Also, NuGet stores package information under C:\Users\xxxxx.nuget\packages
Used by NuGet to keep track of installed packages
Thank you for replying. This is last query I have and after that I will not be disturbing you people. So far, from my own research and your replies, what I have understood is that when I install any nuget package, it will first look in the local repositories. If the package is not available, it will look on the web. By default the link to web repository is "https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json". Also I can add other online repositories too (please correct me if I wrong). Now, my question is if I add, modify or delete any nuget package source from the visual studio nuget setting will these change get shown on nuget cli or dotnet cli as well?
[This picture is not mine, I have taken it from the microsoft documentation page.]
Continues to the next reply...
Also, if I modify any add, modify or delete any nuget source source from the nuget or dotnet cli, will those changes get shown on the visual studio nuget setting?
Here is a screenshot from the dotnet cli nuget source outcome.
Do you think the link to online repository is the official nuget link and these are the sources links active in visual studio? I am actually slightly scared to peek into the visual studio nuget setting as I might accidentally change any setting or modify the link to point to a different location on the web which might send me malicious codes when I am requesting for package. Please help me out to better understand how all of this work. And, it would be very kind of you if you please take a look at the nuget link confirm whether it is official link or not? Thank you.
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When you download the nuget package, there will be a .nuspec file that stores some basic information about the package.
The path is as Karen said, this is an example of EntityFramework:
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