Visual Studio does not have a gesture to reevaluate lock file.

[TFTomSun]

Normally, Visual Studio restores the latest package version on rebuild when you use a non-prerelease floating version ('*'). I expect the same behavior with the floating prerelease version '*-*'.

I have created demo repository with 3 projects:
https://github.com/AppGates/AppGates.Build.Versioning

It uses Nerdbank.Versioning. The ExternalLibrary is referenced as a PackageReference in the ReferencingLibrary.

steps to reproduce:

• build the external library to get an initial local package (the pack out dir is \pack)
• rebuild the referencing project, the external library package will be restored
• make a change to the external library and commit it
• rebuild the external library to generate a new package
• rebuild the referencing project
  -> the referencing project sticks with the previous package version of the external library. The packages.lock file is not updated

[nkolev92]

I think this is working as designed right now, but this is not ideal and something we'd like to fix.

The reason why it's not getting refreshed is because you have a lock file.

VS rebuild is not equivalent to the gesture to regenerate the lock file.

Related to #6987.

Retitling the issue to indicate the lack of a gesture to reevaluate the lock file.

Might be a good customer sprint effort, @JonDouglas @donnie-msft @zivkan

[TFTomSun]

I found a workaround. A bit hacky, but works.

 <!--hack to fix not working RestoreForceEvaluate property-->
  <PropertyGroup >
    <OriginalNugetLockFilePath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\packages.lock.json</OriginalNugetLockFilePath>
    <NuGetLockFilePath>$(BaseIntermediateOutputPath)\packages.lock.temp</NuGetLockFilePath>
    <RestorePackagesWithLockFile>$(RestoreForceEvaluate.Equals('false').Equals(false))</RestorePackagesWithLockFile>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <Target Name="CopyTempLockFile" BeforeTargets="BeforeBuild" >
    <Move
      Condition="'$(RestoreForceEvaluate)' == 'true' AND Exists($(NuGetLockFilePath))"
      SourceFiles="$(NuGetLockFilePath)"
          DestinationFiles="$(OriginalNugetLockFilePath)"
          OverwriteReadOnlyFiles="true"/>
  </Target>

  <Target Name="RestoreBeforeClean" BeforeTargets="Clean">
    <CallTarget Targets="Restore"/>
  </Target>