Before I reset, I decided to lay out some basic info about ASP.NET 5

The current released (at present RC1) bits can be retrieved from

https://get.asp.net

Any bugs/issue or qualms should be posted to the appropriate repository on Github
https://github.com/aspnet

Recordings of the ASP.NET team standups can be found at

https://live.asp.net

The documentation (in progress) can be found at

https://docs.asp.net

Note any docs with a wrench icon has not been started yet.

There is also a freely available Microsoft Virtual Academy course available:

https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-courses/introduction-to-asp-net-5-13786

Well, in my last post I mentioned a Powershell/DNX case sensitivity issue related to commands. I logged this as an issue over on GitHub and was told that DNX,DNU and DNVM will be retired in RC2 in favor of a unified “dotnet” CLI (ETA February 2016). I had heard about these being possibly being replaced a few months ago at a regional .NET event, and also Scott Hanselman mentioned the new CLI last week on his blog

It’s possible to start try out some of these bits now so I will try re-starting with that in a future post (soon!).

Looking at the project.json from my last post

We see the following

{
  "version": "1.0.0-*",
  "description": "ConsoleApp1 Console Application",
  "authors": [ "knarfalingus" ],
  "tags": [ "hello", "world" ],
  "projectUrl": "https://www.knarfalingus.com",
  "licenseUrl": "https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT",

  "compilationOptions": {
    "emitEntryPoint": true
  },

  "dependencies": {
  },

  "commands": {
    "ConsoleApp1": "ConsoleApp1"
  },

  "frameworks": {
    "dnxcore50": {
      "dependencies": {
       "Microsoft.CSharp": "4.0.1-beta-23516",
       "System.Console": "4.0.0-beta-23516",
      }
    }
  }
}

To simplify, we can actually remove the following

  "compilationOptions": {
    "emitEntryPoint": true
  }

This wasn’t required as the runtime will find the static Main() method.

Also we can remove the metadata, authors, projectUrl and licenseUrl etc. I added those arbitrarily anyway.

What is interesting is the commands

  "commands": {
    "ConsoleApp1”: “ConsoleApp1”
  }

The above is typical of what Visual Studio 2015 would create. The name “ConsoleApp1” doesn’t have to match the application/namespace, for example the following works just as well.

  "commands": {
    “xyz”: "ConsoleApp1”
  }

This can be explicitly run by executing

dnx xyz

The surprising part I found when trying this on Windows was, the value “ConsoleApp1” refers to the folder the app is in, not the namespace or application title. For example with this project.json

{
  "version": "1.0.0-*",

  "dependencies": {
  },

  "commands": {
    “xyz”: "ConsoleApp1"
  },

  "frameworks": {
    "dnxcore50": {
      "dependencies": {
        "Microsoft.CSharp": "4.0.1-beta-23516",
        "System.Console": "4.0.0-beta-23516",
      }
    }
  }
}

And the two files, project.json and Program.cs in a ConsoleApp1 directory, if I change into the directory from the parent directory using cd ConsoleApp1, dnx xyz works but if I do cd consoleapp1, in Powershell it doesn’t!, Powershell introduces case into the folder name see below. This doesn’t happen with the standard console.

I am not sure if this is a bug or not due to the fact that ASP.NET is targeting systems with case sensitive file systems whereas in Windows the file system is not case sensitive (by default).

Now that we have the VM set up, and ASP.NET 5 installed, lets do the bare minimum and create a console app.  In terminal type the following commands to create a folder for our project (you can create in an alternate location if you wish)

cd ~
mkdir Code
cd Code
mkdir ConsoleApp1
cd ConsoleApp1

Then fire up an editor, in this case I use nano (sadists can use vi)

nano

Let’s start with the C# program, enter the following code:

using System;

 namespace ConsoleApp1
 {
         public class Program
         {
                 public static void Main(string[] args)
                 {
                         Console.WriteLine("Hello World");
                 }
         }
 }

Now save the file as Program.cs

Fire up the editor again and create the project file:

{
  "version": "1.0.0-*",
  "description": "ConsoleApp1 Console Application",
  "authors": [ "knarfalingus" ],
  "tags": [ "hello", "world" ],
  "projectUrl": "https://www.knarfalingus.com",
  "licenseUrl": "https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT",

  "compilationOptions": {
    "emitEntryPoint": true
  },

  "dependencies": {
  },

  "commands": {
    "ConsoleApp1": "ConsoleApp1"
  },

  "frameworks": {
    "dnxcore50": {
      "dependencies": {
       "Microsoft.CSharp": "4.0.1-beta-23516",
       "System.Console": "4.0.0-beta-23516",
      }
    }
  }
}

Save this file as project.json

Now we execute the following command to pull in the dependencies (Microsoft.CSharp and System.Console in this case). This will pull in quite a bit of files

dnx restore

If your project.json is incorrect in any way you will be greeted with stack traces. Scroll up and start from the top.

After all the dependencies have been pulled in you can execute the program:

dnx run

The output should be

Hello World

References : http://docs.asp.net/en/latest/dnx/console.html