Exercise - Manage dependency updates in your .NET project

4 minutes

Dependencies that you use in your apps can be updated often and might contain new features, bug fixes, and critical security updates. The app that you created is small, and has only a single dependency. Updating it should be straightforward. To take advantage of the latest features, see if you can update the app.

Upgrade app dependencies

In the DotNetDependencies.csproj file, look at the dependencies. It should look like this code:
```
<ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Humanizer" Version="2.7.9" />
</ItemGroup>
```
To see installed dependencies, run this command:
```
dotnet list package
```
The command should output the requested version and the final resolved (installed) version.
```
Top-level Package      Requested   Resolved
> Humanizer            2.7.9        2.7.9
```
To see what dependencies are outdated, run this command:
```
dotnet list package --outdated
```
The output should look something like the following output. You might get different values in the Latest column.
```
Project `DotNetDependencies` has the following updates to its packages
   [net8.0]:
   Top-level Package      Requested   Resolved   Latest
   > Humanizer            2.7.9       2.7.9      2.11.10
```
By default, this command checks for the latest stable version. To check for prerelease packages, append --include-prerelease to the previous command:
```
dotnet list package --outdated --include-prerelease
```
You can, with some level of confidence, update to the Latest version. Doing so ensures the dependencies get the latest features and patches in that major version. To install the latest version, run the following command:
```
dotnet add package Humanizer 
```
You should get output similar to the following example:
```
info : PackageReference for package 'Humanizer' version '2.11.10' updated in file 'C:\Users\username\Desktop\DotNetDependencies\DotNetDependencies.csproj'.
```
The output states that your project dependencies were updated.

If you want to upgrade to a specific version of the dependency, you can append the --version parameter and specify the specific version.
```
dotnet add package Humanizer --version 2.11.10
```
Lastly, you can also install the latest prerelease package by appending the --prerelease parameter.
```
dotnet add package Humanizer --prerelease
```
Your results might be slightly different. The listed version should correspond to the latest available version of the package.

Congratulations. You upgraded the dependency in your app. Well done!

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