NuSpec-generated NuGet file is resolving the wrong version of a dependency - how can I force it to do otherwise?

Question

I have created a NuSpec file for my .NET Project as follows:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<package>
  <metadata>
    <id>$id$</id>
    <version>$version$</version>
    <title>$title$</title>
    <authors>Author</authors>
    <description>My Project</description>
    <owners>Me</owners>
    <dependencies>
    </dependencies>
  </metadata>
</package>

My project also has two NuGet provided dependencies, these being:

<package id="Autofac" version="3.5.2" targetFramework="net451" />
<package id="Autofac.Extras.NLog" version="1.2.3" targetFramework="net451" />

When I create the NuGet package for my project using this NuSpec, NuGet is smart enough to pull these addtional dependencies in. When I install my NuGet package in a new Project, I also get the Autofac and Autofac.Extras.NLog dependencies too, referenced and automatically inserted into the packages.config for my new Project.

However... the version of Autofac I get is wrong. Rather than version 3.5.2 I get version 2.6.1.841 :

<package id="Autofac" version="2.6.1.841" targetFramework="net451" />
<package id="Autofac.Extras.NLog" version="1.2.3" targetFramework="net451" />

Now, Autofac.Extras.NLog has a dependency of ≥ 2.2.4.900 (at time of writing). I have two questions:

• It looks as though NuGet is first fulfilling the Autofac.Extras.NLog Autofac dependency by installing Autofac 2.6.1.841 . When it then comes to fulflling my project's Autofac depdency, it is seeing that Autofac is already installed and therefore does nothing. How can I make NuGet resolve the Autofac dependency to version 3.5.2 ?
• Even though NuGet is resolving the 'wrong' NuGet depdendency (at least for my purposes), why is it resolving to 2.6.1.841 rather than 2.2.4.900 , which is the minimum version specified in the Autofac.Extras.NLog dependency?

Answer 1

you can restrict artifact version to be referenced by specifying version number in a pair of square brackets. please find sample below

<package id="Autofac" version="[3.5.2]" targetFramework="lib/net45" />

edit your packages.config file with the above line , and see if that works ..!!

Answer 2

A solution is to add these dependencies to the NuSpec file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<package>
  <metadata>
    <id>$id$</id>
    <version>$version$</version>
    <title>$title$</title>
    <authors>Author</authors>
    <description>My Project</description>
    <owners>Me</owners>
    <dependencies>
      <group targetFramework="net451">
        <dependency id="Autofac" version="3.5.2"/> <!-- EXTRA DEPENDENCY -->
      </group>
    </dependencies>
  </metadata>
</package>

It would still be good to know if there's a solution where you don't have to maintain the NuSpec file every time there are dependency version changes in the project you're packaging.

Answer 3

Looks like Nuget 3.5 (now in Beta) finally solved this issue. I tested on my project and the dependencies were calculated correctly (Nuget 3.4 didn't calculate them correctly).

Nuget download page

This is the pull request: https://github.com/NuGet/NuGet.Client/pull/632/files