dotnet-publish: Which "publish-related properties" are supported?

[NightProgramming]

Here the docs say:

You can also set publish-related properties by referring to a .pubxml file. For example:
dotnet publish -p:PublishProfile=FolderProfile

I would have assumed for instance that the DeleteExistingFiles property inside .pubxml is a publish-related property but it is ignored by dotnet publish.

Also the LastUsedBuildConfiguration seems to be ignored because dotnet publish still builds and copies the Debug dlls, not the Release dlls although I have specified:

<LastUsedBuildConfiguration>Release</LastUsedBuildConfiguration>

Is LastUsedBuildConfiguration not a publish-related property? I would have guessed that it is.

I think it's not a mistake on my end because the PublishDir setting in .pubxml is honored when I do dotnet publish and the DeleteExistingFiles and LastUsedBuildConfiguration settings are honored when publishing via Visual Studio. Maybe DeleteExistingFiles and LastUsedBuildConfiguration are meant to only be used by Visual Studio but the docs here only mention PublishUrl to be meant to be used by Visual Studio.

I think it would be very helpful to write in the docs which publish-related properties exactly are supported by dotnet publish in order to avoid confusion and maybe also it should be mentioned what the necessary replacements are for unsupported publish-related properties, e.g. --configuration argument has to be used instead of LastUsedBuildConfiguration setting.

Using .NET 7 SDK and tested with a completely new ASP.NET Core Web Application project. I didn't test any other publish-related properties.

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Document Details

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• ID: 211afdc7-c796-202d-239d-823f2a499dff
• Version Independent ID: 9439897e-dcb3-bc2e-5cae-35c1ca2e0681
• Content: dotnet publish command - .NET CLI
• Content Source: docs/core/tools/dotnet-publish.md
• Product: dotnet-fundamentals
• Technology: dotnet-cli
• GitHub Login: @tdykstra
• Microsoft Alias: tdykstra

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Associated WorkItem - 66017

[tdykstra]

@baronfel
Should dotnet publish honor all of the .pubxml properties that Visual Studio publishing honors? Specifically if dotnet publish ignores DeleteExistingFiles and LastUsedBuildConfiguration, is this a bug or just a difference to be documented in the dotnet publish article?

[baronfel]

It's really hard to say which properties dotnet publish will ignore because it's entirely determined by the build targets that run as part of the publish operation. It is very likely that, say, SelfContained would be honored in both scenarios, but unfortunately PublishProfiles are also used by VS to store a lot of 'last run' data. Many publish mechanisms used by VS are not runnable from the CLI, so there's no worry about overlap at least.

There's some effort in dotnet/sdk#29817 to bring the CLI more into alignment with VS's behaviors, but LastUsedBuildConfiguration for example may never be used.

There's probably a good documentation split between the 'packaging' aspect of publishing and the 'deployment automation' aspect of publishing - the CLI and VS both do the former, and properties relating to that we should support, but the CLI will probably never do the latter.