Packaging .NET Core application into a single executable file package.

Are you looking for some information about packaging .NET Core application with its dependencies and other files into a single executable file package? This tutorial shows how to do it step by step with the help of BoxedApp Packer.

.NET Core is a free and open-source software to build and run .Net applications. It's available on different platforms.

Beginning with the version .NET Core 2.1 offers a self-contained deployment, which produces an executable and includes a copy of the .NET Core runtime.

Both .NET application and .NET Core runtime comprise of a lot of files. It's a good idea to combine them into a single executable to simplify application distribution, hide and protect assets, sensitive code and data.

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If you don't have .NET Core, download and install it from the official web site.

Run cmd.exe, create a directory for a sample project and create a simple project: mkdir V:\Projects\PackedDotNetCoreApp cd V:\Projects\PackedDotNetCoreApp dotnet new console dotnet run

.NET Core creates a project of a console application. Edit Program.cs:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
    Console.WriteLine("Press any key to exit");
    Console.ReadKey();
}

Let's test if it works well. Build it and publish from command line:

dotnet publish PackedDotNetCoreApp.csproj -c Release -r win-x86 --self-contained true

The file V:\Projects\PackedDotNetCoreApp\bin\Release\netcoreapp2.2\win-x86\publish\PackedDotNetCoreApp.exe is created, you can launch it to check that it works well.

Start BoxedApp Packer, click on Select - Browse... and choose V:\Projects\PackedDotNetCoreApp\bin\Release\netcoreapp2.2\win-x86\publish\PackedDotNetCoreApp.exe. Then click on Add Files..., switch to folder V:\Projects\PackedDotNetCoreApp\bin\Release\netcoreapp2.2\win-x86\publish and add all the files except PackedDotNetCoreApp.exe:

Then click to Build and run packed executable. It works as expected:

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