Creating a DotNet project via Command Line Interface

The goal here is to set up a basic project split into three chunks:

• a Library containing shared code (we'll call it Lib in our examples)
• a suite of Tests for the library (called Lib.Tests)
• an Application that uses the library (called App)

All within a solution called dotnetSampleConsoleApp

The results of running the commands are shown in this repository, with minor changes (an example of calling Lib code from UnitTest1.cs and Program.cs).

Install dependencies

# install dotnet on ubuntu
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y dotnet-sdk-6.0

Create a Solution file

# create solution directory
mkdir dotnetSampleConsoleApp
cd dotnetSampleConsoleApp

# create solution
dotnet new sln

Create the Library

# create a library project
dotnet new classlib -o Lib
dotnet sln add ./Lib/Lib.csproj

Create A Unit Test Project

Uses NUnit because it has decent documentation, but other suites are also available.

# create library unit tests
dotnet new nunit -o Lib.Tests
dotnet sln add ./Lib.Tests/Lib.Tests.csproj

# tests depend on lib they are testing
dotnet add ./Lib.Tests/Lib.Tests.csproj reference ./Lib/Lib.csproj

# run tests
dotnet test

Create the Executable Project

# create an executable project
dotnet new console -o App
# add project to solution
dotnet sln ./dotnetSampleConsoleApp.sln add ./App/App.csproj

# executable depends on library
dotnet add ./App/App.csproj reference ./Lib/Lib.csproj

Add Custom Code

At this point we can add in a bit of test code where App references Lib and Lib.Tests tests Lib.

Once that is done, we can run the project with:

# run project
dotnet run --project App