Reload DNX whenever a file changes
Dec 17, 2015
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I’m currently developing a console app in .NET Core on my Mac. It’s a rather nice experience, although I miss a lot of stuff from Visual Studio, e.g. build triggers. Let’s make DNX reload whenever a file changes.
One problem I have with the Visual Studio Code and .NET Core setup, is that I find
it tedious to write a bunch of code, then have to leave Visual Studio Code to run
dnx run from the terminal to verify that my code compiles, then run dnx test to
verify that my unit tests still pass etc.
Luckily, there is a tool called dnx-watch, that will reload dnx as soon as any file in your project changes.
To install dnx-watch, make sure that you have updated your stack with the latest versions, using dnvm, then install dnx-watch with this command:
dnu commands install Microsoft.Dnx.Watcher 1.0.0
In my console app, I have a console app project and a test project. Since the test
project runs code from the app project, I just have to run dnx-watch test in the
test project’s root folder. dnx-watch will then fire as soon as I change a file in
either the app or the test project.
I can now stay in Visual Studio Code, write a bunch of code and see my tests run each time I save a file in either project.