Pack targets extensibility - Make the project reference driven package references possible to overwrite

[nkolev92]

This effectively means modifying the information usually processed through the assets file.

There's a related internal thread raised by @AArnott

NuGet's behavior is undefined when the project reference target framework gets changed/stripped out.

Related threads for investigation:

https://github.com/microsoft/vs-threading
microsoft/vs-threading#483

Other scenarios are including references to native projects and making them packable through the targets.

Note that this wouldn't be a recommended scenario, but there should be an escape hatch for special scenarios that are difficult to support natively.

[nkolev92]

A well put "suggestion" describing how to actually handle this refactoring.

A common pattern in MSBuild .targets is to split up steps across targets so that folks can intercept and tweak things with custom targets. If NuGet produced a .nuspec file in one target, and packed in a subsequent target, that would give an intermediate target that I might inject a chance to modify the .nuspec file before it was packed, which would drastically customization.

[nkolev92]

A potential workaround it to call GenerateNuspec https://github.com/NuGet/NuGet.Client/blob/dev/src/NuGet.Core/NuGet.Build.Tasks.Pack/NuGet.Build.Tasks.Pack.targets#L195, edit through your own task and run pack.

Edit: Not really a valid suggestion. See #8133 (comment)

[AArnott]

@nkolev92 I've noticed that the GenerateNuspec target tends to actually do the packing itself. How would I suppress that, and how would I then get it to pack with my rewritten nuspec later?

[nkolev92]

I actually did not mean to close this issue.
In my triaging I think I forgot the fact that GenerateNuspec calls the pack task today, so I'll just strike through my comment as it's not a valid suggestion.