Installing packages with nuget on command line on MacOS? - mysql

Question

I'm trying F# on OS X and I'm having trouble installing packages. My problem is to use MySQL.
I have downloaded Nuget and I can launch it. However, I didn't find any useful documentation about how to use it on the command line.
I managed to install MySQL.Data by doing
mono nuget.exe install MySql.Data
which downloaded it to my current repository. Is that normal? I was expecting it to be "installed" in a more central directory.
Moreover, when I try to require it, r "MySql.Data it doesn't work. It works if I set the include path properly by doing:
fsharpi --lib:MySql.Data.6.8.3/lib/net45
But that seems super heavy. Is there a way to add all the installed nuget in the path automatically?

Answer 1

Short answer: No.
Long answer: Yes, but it won't be what you hoped for.
It is possible to get NuGet to put installed library some specific place. On Mac OS, add the following to the end of ~/.config/NuGet/NuGet.Config
<configuration>
<config>
<add key="repositoryPath" value="/path/to/where/you/want/it/to/go" />
</config>
</configuration>
However, (a) NuGet still puts DLLs in different directories, so there is still no single place for fsharpi to find them. (b) Anyway fsharpi doesn't honor $MONO_PATH, Mono's canonical way to add to the DLL search path.
The closest I've come to a workable solution for fsharpi is:
Whenever you nuget a package, manually add it to MONO_PATH (say, in ~/.profile). E.g., supposing you told nuget to put stuff in /opt/nuget you would add:
export MONO_PATH=$MONO_PATH:/opt/nuget/MySql.Data.6.8.3/lib/net45
Whenever you run fsharpi, explicitly feed it $MONO_PATH:
fsharpi -I:$MONO_PATH
If you feel adventurous you could then patch the fsharpi script to automatically include $MONO_PATH.
I find that this is not worth the effort. Simply constructing a script that starts fsharpi with the options you need for whatever you're currently working on is a much more practical solution.
I'm an F# programmer on a Mac. My life is like an illicit love affair with someone married: I endure all the little slights because my heart leaves me no choice.

Answer 2

The most common use I see is
mono nuget.exe install mysql.data -OutputDirectory packages -ExcludeVersion
Which would install in your project's directory (generally you ignore the packages directory in your repository however and just restore it with a script) and you'd then find it at packages/MySql.Data/lib/net45
Downloading nuget to your repository is also common.
You can always write your own script to do the the fsharpi hookups you want, nuget has a lot of convention, so it's possible to pick the right dll from lib/*/ for your purposes
And it's possible to do it with an fsharp script, here's an fsx script that can be executed directly, it downloads nuget, installs from nuget, and then executes another script (with fake not fsharpi, but that's totally possible.