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4 Ways to Include Symbols and Source Files when Shipping C# Libraries

Published by Fredrik on July 5, 2018

The need for debugging NuGet packaged assemblies have always been around, but did you know there are a couple of ways to achieve the same thing? Let’s take a closer look.

One Package to Rule Them All

Back in the days, I’ve mostly done symbol packaging by including the pdb symbol file and the source code in the nuget package along with the assembly. Everything in one single NuGet package.

pros

  • No extra communication to download symbols and source
  • No need to know where symbols and source files are located

 cons

  • Larger NuGet package

 

Symbol Package

To mitigate bloated packages and unnecessary data due to lack of debugging needs, there is the possibility to pack the symbol file and source code in a symbol package. This is done by creating a .nuget package containing the runtime and a .symbol.nuget package containing runtime, symbols and source code. The package containing the runtime is uploaded to a NuGet package server and the symbol package is uploaded to a symbol source server, like NuGet smbsrc.

pros

  • Small NuGet package 

cons

  • Need to know where the symbols are stored
  • Extra communication to download symbols and source files

Note: SymbolSource does not support the portable PDBs that the .NET Core CLI tool generates.

SourceLink

Now part of the .Net Foundation, SourceLink support has been integrated into Visual Studio 2017 15.3 and the brand new smoking hot .NET Core 2.1 SDK. SourceLink include source file information into the symbol files, making symbol packages obsolete. The source files can then be downloaded on demand from the source code repository by the debugger using this piece of information.

pros

  • Medium NuGet package
  • No symbol source package needed
  • Only download the source files needed for debugging

cons

  • Might call the repository for source code many times

JetBrains dotPeek

Did you know you could utilize dotPeek as a local symbol server? Well now you do. dotPeek will automatically construct symbol files from the assemblies loaded, which will be associated with the decompiled source files.

pros

  • Small NuGet package
  • No symbols or source files needed!

cons

  • Quite slow
  • Need to disable Just My Code when debugging, making symbol loading even slower
  • Not the real source code; poorer code quality

Conclusion

There you have it! Which ever approach you prefer, there will as usual always be trade offs. However, SourceLink seems to gain traction and might have a shot to become the de facto standard of symbol source packaging.

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