Consume pdbs from packages in PackageReference - add Debug Symbols to LockFileTargetLibrary

[wli3]

dotnet/sdk#1458 depends on this

To include PDB to CopyLocal, SDK need NuGet.ProjectModel to categorize PDB and XML file to an ideally different category like "debug symbol" or "related file".

So SDK can get all the symbol files by something like var symbolPath = lockFileTargetLibrary.debugSymbols , just like CompileTimeAssemblies, RuntimeAssemblies today

https://github.com/NuGet/NuGet.Client/blob/efae789c75899ca0bdd063f34a4b73cd41510d56/src/NuGet.Core/NuGet.ProjectModel/LockFile/LockFileTargetLibrary.cs#L27

• Add a spec of "consuming pdbs from packages in PackageReference" #11350
• Check existing extensions besides assemblies in packages on nuget.org #11351
• Implement "consuming pdbs from packages in PackageReference" #11352

[nkolev92]

@wli3 @nguerrera

I know we discussed this in a sync-up meeting.
If there's any sort of urgency for this issue, let us know so we can account for that in our triaging.

fyi @aortiz-msft

[nguerrera]

It was on me to write up a more complete proposal and I got caught up with release issues since. I still intend to push forward on this. It would be good to have it on your radar for soon. There are a lot of pings on related sdk issues for quite some time. I think we should try to prioritize it.

[nkolev92]

@wli3
Let us know when this becomes a priority for you.

[nguerrera]

Here is a small proposal to push this forward:

For any given asset, if there are files next to it that differ only by extension AND those files are not themselves assets of another type, then add a "related" array underneath the asset listing the extensions of these files.

{
  "version": 3,
  "targets": {
    ".NETCoreApp,Version=v5.0": {
      "Newtonsoft.Json/12.0.3": {
        "type": "package",
        "compile": {
-          "lib/netstandard2.0/Newtonsoft.Json.dll": {}
+          "lib/netstandard2.0/Newtonsoft.Json.dll": {
+             "related": [".pdb", ".xml"]
+          }
        },
        "runtime": {
-          "lib/netstandard2.0/Newtonsoft.Json.dll": {}
+          "lib/netstandard2.0/Newtonsoft.Json.dll": {
+             "related": [".pdb", ".xml"]
+          }
      }
    }
  },

Then in the SDK, any place where we copy a nuget asset should respect AllowedReferenceRelatedFileExtensions

Since I no longer work on .NET. I will leave it to the SDK and NuGet teams to come up with a final proposal.

[heng-liu]

Closed as fixed.

[michael-hawker]

@heng-liu can you provide some more details about where the PR/fix is and when/which release we should expect to see it in? Thanks!

[heng-liu]

Hi @michael-hawker , thanks for asking!
Just want to clarify that, in order to consume related files(.pdb, .xml etc.) in package reference, we need changes from both NuGet and SDK. So the PR NuGet/NuGet.Client#4654 finished the work from NuGet side recently. But it still needs SDK's change to make the feature work.
I guess the SDK tracking issue is dotnet/sdk#1458