Get Xml documentation of dependent package in Docker container - docker

Question

We have an Asp.Net Core 2.0 web service, which we deploy in a Docker container.
For the web service we generate an xml documentation file and we use that file in Swagger-ui.
This works well for the xml documentation generated from the project itsself, but I can't get the xml comments that are generated for an included package visible when the web service is deployed in a Docker container.
The nuget package (also created by us) does contain an xml documentation file and we can make swagger use it when running the service on a local machine.
The documentation is made available to swagger by calling .IncludeXmlComments and the path to the documentation is determined by getting the path to the assembly and then replacing the .dll extension with .xml.
I suspect that the xml doc file of the package is not included in the container and can therefore not be found. In the Dockerfile I see the command
COPY publish .
I would either like a command that also adds/copies the package's xml doc file, or know how to make the xml doc file part of the publish assets.
Any other solution that makes this work in a robust way (not just on my machine) is welcome too.
EDIT:
we now have the extra xml doc file in the Docker container, but Swagger still doesn't show the descriptions that are provided in that file (which it does when running locally).
We used something similar to this:
<Target Name="PrepublishScript" BeforeTargets="PrepareForPublish">
<ItemGroup>
<DocFile Include="$(USERPROFILE)\.nuget\packages\{packagename}\**\lib\$(TargetFramework)\{PackageName}.xml" />
</ItemGroup>
<Copy SourceFiles="#(DocFile)" DestinationFolder="$(PublishDir)" SkipUnchangedFiles="false" />
</Target>
In which {PackageName} should be replaced by the actual name of your package. The wild card in the path keeps it version independent (although we must check if this now causes issues, as we have multiple versions).

Answer 1

Make sure you had checked XML Documentation checkbox for Release configuration under Project properties-> Build-> XML Documentation File. You might have already checked it for Debug configuration but not for Release Configuration. Select Release from dropdown under project properties and check XML Documentation file checkbox. Your docker RUN dotnet publish "" -c Release -o /app wouldn't produce Documentation XML file unless you check the checkbox for Release configuration.

Answer 2

I'll answer my own question, as a co-worker found out how to solve this.
You only need to change the nuget package, just follow these steps:
Create a "build" folder in your project
In that folder create a file with extension .targets (say projectname.targets) with content
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<ItemGroup>
<None Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)projectname.xml">
<Link>projectname.xml</Link>
<CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</None>
</ItemGroup>
Edit the csproj file, add this before the final </Project> tag
<ItemGroup>
<None Include="bin\$(Configuration)\$(TargetFramework)\projectname.xml" Pack="true" PackagePath="build" />
<None Include="build\projectname.targets" Pack="true" PackagePath="build" />
</ItemGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<Folder Include="build\" />
<Folder Include="Properties\" />
</ItemGroup>
Substitute "projectname with your name of choice, we used the name of our project.
These modifications will add the xml documentation file of the package in the root of (the) project(s) that use it with properties Build Action: None and Copy to Output Directory: Copy always.
After that we could see the xml comments from the package also if it was deployed in a Docker container, no modifications to the Docker file were necessary.

Answer 3

Generally, we will not expose API documentation in a production environment. The documentation is useful for the dev environment.
Hence i figured out a different work around for this.
I have run the build & publish commands with default configuration i.e., debug.
RUN dotnet build -o /app
RUN dotnet publish -o /app
I have deployed this in my dev environment for UI developer reference.
I hope this helps.