slnutil

A collection of utilities for working with .NET Core Solutions and Projects.

Written by Benjamin Day
Pluralsight Author | Microsoft MVP | Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer
https://www.benday.com
info@benday.com

Got ideas for utilities you'd like to see? Found a bug? Let us know by submitting an issue https://github.com/benday-inc/slnutil/issues. Want to contribute? Submit a pull request.

Installing

The slnutil is distributed as a .NET Core Tool via NuGet. To install it go to the command prompt and type
dotnet tool install slnutil -g

Prerequisites

• You'll need to install .NET Core 8 from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/

Commands

Command Name	Description
rename	Bulk rename for files and folders.
cleanreferences	Simplifies package references in a C# project file. Mostly this fixes stuff in the EF Core references that breaks Azure DevOps & GitHub builds like PrivateAssets and IncludeAssets directives.
deployefmigrations	Deploy EF Core Migrations from DLL binaries.
devtreeclean	Clean development folder tree. Removes node_modules, .git, bin, obj, and TestResults folders.
findsolutions	Find solution files in a folder tree.
getconnectionstring	Get database connection string in appsettings.json.
classesfromjson	Create C# classes from JSON with serialization attributes for System.Text.Json.
listpackages-oldstyle	Lists packages referenced in legacy style packages.config files.
listsolutionprojects	Gets list of projects in a solution.
replacetoken	Replace token in file.
setconnectionstring	Set database connection string in appsettings.json.
setframework	Set the target framework version on all projects.
setjsonvalue	Set a string value in a json file.
setprojectproperty	Set a project property value on all projects.
base64	Encodes a string value as a base 64 string.
touch	Modifies a file's date to current date time or creates a new empty file if it doesn't exist.
validateconnectionstring	Validate that specified connection string can connect to SQL Server.
wildcardreference	Changes package references in a C# project file to use wildcard version rather than fixed version number.

rename

Bulk rename for files and folders.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
rootdir	Optional	String	Starting directory for the rename operation
from	Required	String	String to search for and replace
to	Required	String	Replacement value
preview	Optional	Boolean	Preview changes
recursive	Optional	Boolean	Recurse the directory tree

cleanreferences

Simplifies package references in a C# project file. Mostly this fixes stuff in the EF Core references that breaks Azure DevOps & GitHub builds like PrivateAssets and IncludeAssets directives.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
solutionpath	Optional	String	Solution file to use
preview	Optional	Boolean	Preview changes only

deployefmigrations

Deploy EF Core Migrations from DLL binaries.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
binariesdir	Optional	String	Path to EF Core migration binaries. Defaults to current directory.
startupdll	Optional	String	Path to EF Core startup DLL.
migrationsdll	Optional	String	Path to EF Core migrations DLL.
dbcontextname	Optional	String	Name of the EF Core DbContext class.
namespace	Optional	String	Root namespace of the EF Core migrations DLL.
verbose	Optional	Boolean	Output results as comma-separated values

devtreeclean

Clean development folder tree. Removes node_modules, .git, bin, obj, and TestResults folders.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
rootdir	Optional	String	Starting directory. If not supplied, the tool uses the current directory.

findsolutions

Find solution files in a folder tree.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
rootdir	Required	String	Path to start search from
listprojects	Optional	Boolean	List projects in solutions
csv	Optional	Boolean	Output results as comma-separated values
skipreferences	Optional	Boolean	Output results as comma-separated values

getconnectionstring

Get database connection string in appsettings.json.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
filename	Optional	String	Path to json config file
name	Required	String	Name of the connection string to get

classesfromjson

Create C# classes from JSON with serialization attributes for System.Text.Json.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description

listpackages-oldstyle

Lists packages referenced in legacy style packages.config files.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
rootdir	Optional	String	Path to start search from

listsolutionprojects

Gets list of projects in a solution.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
solutionpath	Optional	String	Solution to examine. If this value is not supplied, the tool searches for a sln file automatically.
pathonly	Optional	Boolean	Only show the project paths. Don't show the framework versions.

replacetoken

Replace token in file.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
filename	Required	String	Path to file
token	Required	String	Token to replace
value	Required	String	String value to set

setconnectionstring

Set database connection string in appsettings.json.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
filename	Optional	String	Path to json config file
name	Required	String	Name of the connection string to set
value	Required	String	Connection string value

setframework

Set the target framework version on all projects.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
solutionpath	Optional	String	Solution to examine. If this value is not supplied, the tool searches for a sln file automatically.
version	Required	String	Framework version to set projects to.

setjsonvalue

Set a string value in a json file.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
filename	Optional	String	Path to json config file
level1	Required	String	First level json property name to set
level2	Optional	String	Second level json property name to set
level3	Optional	String	Third level json property name to set
level4	Optional	String	Fourth level json property name to set
value	Required	String	String value to set
increment-int	Optional	Boolean	Increment the existing value or use the '/value' as the value if it does not exist or isn't an integer.
increment-minor-version	Optional	Boolean	Increment the minor version of the existing value or use the '/value' as the value if it does not exist or isn't an integer.

setprojectproperty

Set a project property value on all projects.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
solutionpath	Optional	String	Solution to examine. If this value is not supplied, the tool searches for a sln file automatically.
propertyname	Required	String	Name of the property to set.
propertyvalue	Required	String	Value for the property.

base64

Encodes a string value as a base 64 string.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
value	Required	String	Value to encode as base64

touch

Modifies a file's date to current date time or creates a new empty file if it doesn't exist.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
filename	Required	String	Path to file

validateconnectionstring

Validate that specified connection string can connect to SQL Server.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
filename	Optional	String	Path to json config file
name	Required	String	Name of the connection string to validate

wildcardreference

Changes package references in a C# project file to use wildcard version rather than fixed version number.

Arguments

Argument	Is Optional	Data Type	Description
solutionpath	Optional	String	Solution file to use
preview	Optional	Boolean	Preview changes only
filter	Optional	String	Filter package by name. If package name starts with this value, it gets updated.