how to use Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration? - asp.net-core

Question

I find that The package:Microsoft.VisualStudio.CodeGeneration has over 20,000,000 downloads in the nuget.but I can not find any doc.
how to use it?
any articles about it?

Answer 1

What does this package do
Basically, the package offers a single command to generate code:
dotnet aspnet-codegenerator {name}
You can find the source code here.
How to use the package
We don't use the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration directly unless we're creating a new command to generate code.
Because it is a command library for generic purpose, concrete commands are defined in other packages. For example, the dotnet aspnet-codegenerator controller command is defined in Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGenerators.Mvc. And the command dotnet aspnet-codegenerator identity is also defined in the CG.MVC package.
Usually , since this package is a generic purpose library, you won't reference this package directly. Instead, You'll add the package Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration.Design. Be aware the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration.Design package has a dependency on Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGenerators.Mvc, and the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGenerators.Mvc depends on Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration:
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration.Design
|
|(depends on)
|-----------> Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGenerators.Mvc
|
|(depends on)
|-----------> Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration
Be aware the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration.Design is automatically added into your dependencies when you use Visual Studio to scaffold a controller/identity.
If you're using a VSCode/CLI, you need to manually add such a package reference. See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/tutorials/first-mvc-app/adding-model?view=aspnetcore-3.0&tabs=visual-studio-code#add-nuget-packages

Answer 2

What #itminus says. I think the reason it has so many downloads is from the clear error message when you try to use dotnet aspnet-codegenerator without Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration.Design NuGet.
As of 2021-08-27 it has 90,672,569 total downloads.
https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration.Design/
Example error:
Building project ...
Scaffolding failed.
Add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration.Design package to the project as a
NuGet package reference. To see more information, enable tracing by setting
environment variable 'codegen_trace' = 1.