dotnet tool search --add-source

[am11]

The lack of --add-source option in dotnet-tool-search is unexpected and unsymmetrical to other subcommands of dotnet-tool.

$ dotnet tool install \
    --add-source https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/dnceng/public/_packaging/dotnet-tools/nuget/v3/index.json \
    dotnet-symbol -g

# is fine, but:

$ dotnet tool search \
    --add-source https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/dnceng/public/_packaging/dotnet-tools/nuget/v3/index.json \
    dotnet-symbol

Unrecognized command or argument 'https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/dnceng/public/_packaging/dotnet-tools/nuget/v3/index.json'
Unrecognized command or argument 'dotnet-symbol'

[dotnet-issue-labeler]

I couldn't figure out the best area label to add to this issue. If you have write-permissions please help me learn by adding exactly one area label.

[wli3]

Unfortunately we currently rely on a nuget.org API for the package search. So it is not trivial to add support for other feeds

[am11]

With dotnet tool install --add-source, when we use --version option with non-existent value, the error message shows the highest available version from the source:

$ dotnet tool install \
    --version 99.*
    --add-source https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/dnceng/public/_packaging/dotnet-tools/nuget/v3/index.json \
    dotnet-format -g

/tmp/21xlxu2y.w40/restore.csproj : error NU1102: Unable to find package dotnet-format with version (>= 99.0.0)
/tmp/21xlxu2y.w40/restore.csproj : error NU1102:   - Found 95 version(s) in https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/dnceng/
public/_packaging/dotnet-tools/nuget/v3/index.json [ Nearest version: 6.0.211701 ]
/tmp/21xlxu2y.w40/restore.csproj : error NU1102:   - Found 12 version(s) in nuget.org [ Nearest version: 5.0.211103 ]
...

Could the same mechanism be used to search the latest version of package by user keyword as the name?

[wli3]

We don't have a separated API to just do version query from any nuget feed. So the nuget team need to refactor to an new API first. Even if we have this API, it will be much slower that the nuget.org search API. Since nuget.org search API is a pre computed index.

[am11]

I can imagine in this case user would be okay with the slow results rather than no results.
I am not familiar with the exact abstractions but to me, this part of the exception string:

Found 95 version(s) in https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/dnceng/public/_packaging/dotnet-tools/nuget/v3/index.json [ Nearest version: 6.0.211701 ]

suggests that some API somewhere knows the way to traverse these other types of feeds.