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.NET library

This tutorial explains how to create feeds for a .NET application with a dependency on a .NET library using the Zero Install Publishing Tools.

The application (EXE)

When using the "New Feed Wizard" for creating the feed for the EXE make sure to set "External dependencies" to True on the "Fill in missing details" page. This will automatically add the following line to your feed:

<runner interface="https://apps.0install.net/dotnet/clr-monopath.xml" command="run-gui"/>

This enables Zero Install to inject DLLs provided by feeds into .NET applications. This is required because, unlike regular DLLs, .NET DLLs are not located via the PATH environment variable.

You can then add a dependency on your library feed by adding something like this inside the <implementation> tag:

<requires interface="http://somedomain.com/somelibrary.xml">
  <environment insert="." mode="append" name="MONO_PATH"/>
</requires>

Note that MONO_PATH does not mean that this requires Mono. It just shares the same environment variable name for uniformity.

The library (DLL)

To create a feed for the library start by selecting "New Empty Feed" and copying this into the XML view of the editor:

<interface uri="http://somedomain.com/somelibrary.xml" xmlns="http://zero-install.sourceforge.net/2004/injector/interface">
  <name>Some library</name>
  <summary>a library for something</summary>
  <implementation version="1.0">
    <archive href="http://somedomain.com/somelibrary.zip"/>
  </implementation>
</interface>

You can then fill in the placeholder names and URLs. Once you are done, select the archive node in the tree-view and click on the "Add missing" button on the right hand-side. This performs the same archive download, extraction and hashing that the "New Feed Wizard" normally would.