dotnet-install should be able to get version from repository's global.json

[jeffkl]

Many users lock down their version of .NET Core via global.json. They also have scripts that prepare for build which installs the corresponding .NET Core. However, the version has to be defined in two places or every script must get the version from global.json and pass it to the dotnet-install script.

I'd like to add a feature to dotnet-install.ps1 to allow users to pass in a path to a global.json which will be read and that exact version will be installed. I'm not sure how to parse JSON in bash but I can try to update dotnet-install.sh as well.

[johnbeisner]

@jeffkl
You say: "every script must get the version" You should be able to consolidate the harvesting of the version to at most 2 scripts. Arcade does it in this manner: https://github.com/dotnet/arcade/blob/638da455bb57ee432f733f71c08c6d1767ac798b/eng/common/tools.ps1#L128

[jeffkl]

I'm asking to have our scripts that call dotnet-install.ps1 to just pass the path to global.json rather than having to parse by itself. Not everyone is on Arcade so we have lots of repos with their own scripts that aren't updated or shared by some outside service.

[chrispat]

As mentioned in the issue referenced for github/actions we have been looking to implement this feature in our setup-dotnet action. My preference would be to have the installer scripts just handle it so people just get this for free.

[johnbeisner]

Deployment to 'staging': https://github.com/dotnet/dotnet-core-website/pull/1556

[jeffkl]

Thanks again @johnbeisner!