How to Exclude a T4 Template from a NuGet Package

Question

I'm creating a NuGet package the provides a client for my WebAPI project by reflecting over the ApiControllers and creating classes for each one with methods that correspond to the actions defined on the controller. Unfortunately the .tt file is being included in the content folder when I run nuget.exe pack Client.csproj. I've tried creating a .nuspec file with a <files> directive, but I can't seem to exclude the file by itself. Does anyone know how to force the package to exclude the T4 template?

The project structure is roughly:

Website/
    Controllers/
        UserController.cs
        ...
Client/
    Client.tt
    Client.cs
        namespace Client
            class UserService
            ...

And I'd like a NuGet package like:

lib/
    net45/
        Client.dll
            namespace Client
                class UserService

But I'm getting something like this:

content/
    Client.tt
lib/
    net45/
        Client.dll
            namespace Client
                class UserService
                ...

Floyfloyd

Answer 1

Turns out the easy solution is to use the -Exclude option when creating the package via the command line.

NuGet.exe Pack Client.csproj -Exclude *.tt

The new package will look exactly as specified in the question.

Floyfloyd

A nice gotcha - it doesn't exclude any .tt files in subdirectories, you have to also exclude those in your list. – Malvina

To exclude everything, just do -Exclude */.tt – Malvina

Answer 2

NuGet.exe Pack Client.csproj -Exclude **/*.tt

Latency

Answer 3

In my case the problem was inside csproj file, I had to fix

<Content Include="SomeFile.txt" />

to

<None Include="SomeFile.txt" />

Kirovabad

Answer 4

To build on @Baur's answer you can set this:

<None Include="SomeFile.tt" />

From the IDE, by right clicking the files and going to properties.

Click the BuildAction Property Set it to None

Vile

Answer 5

If you are using Azure DevOps, I tried for a long time either trying using a custom nuget pack command with the -exclude, which did not work, or tried adding a .nuspec file and excluding the content from there. However, nothing worked.

How I fixed it in our project is clicking on each .tt file and setting the "Build Action" from "Content" to "None". It didn't seem to have an affect on the project in any way.

Maybe someone has a better solution, but I struggled with it for 1-2 days until I decided to screw it and just change the build action.

Cheddar