HTTP dependencies

Paket allows one to automatically manage the linking of files from HTTP resources into your projects.

Referencing a single file

You can reference a single file from an HTTP resource simply by specifying the URL in the paket.dependencies file:

1:	`http http://www.fssnip.net/raw/1M/test1.fs`

If you run the paket install command, it will add a new section to your paket.lock file:

1: 
2: 
3:

HTTP
  remote: http://www.fssnip.net/raw/1M/test1.fs
    test1.fs

If you want to reference the file in one of your project files then add an entry to the project's paket.references file.:

1:	`File: test1.fs`

This will reference the linked file directly into your project. By default the linked file will be visible under paket-files directory in project.

Referencing a zip file

If you reference a zip file it will be unzipped relative to the downloaded zip file.

The reference

1:	`http file:///c:/projects/library.zip library/library.zip`

will:

write the zip file to paket-files/localhost/library/library.zip
unzip the content to paket-files/localhost/library

Build action conventions

The build action is determined depending on the file extension:

If the file extension is equal to project type it is added as compile items. For instance .cs for .csproj projects and .fs for .fsproj projects.
If the file extension is .dll then it is added as reference.
Otherwise it is added as an 'Add as link' content file.

Options for HTTP dependencies

When referencing a file using an http dependency, there are several options that help you to deal with things like authentication and file name. The pattern expected is:

1:	`http <url> <file> <source name>`

<file> allows you to define the path to which the file that is downloaded will be written to. For example specifying the following
1:
http http://www.fssnip.net/raw/1M/test1.fs src/test1.fs
will write the file to paket-files/www.fssnip.net/src/test.fs
<source name> allows you to override the directory which the downloaded file is written to and also acts as a key to lookup any credentials that maybe associated for that key. For example you add credentials using paket config add-credentials MySource then each time Paket extracts a HTTP dependency with MySource as a <source name> the credentials will be made part of the HTTP request. If no keys exist in the credential store then the request will be made without any Authorization headers.

Allowed schemes

All http://, https:// and file:// URIs schemes are allowed. Examples:

http https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fsprojects/Paket/master/src/Paket.Core/ProjectFile.fs will write the file to paket-files/raw.githubusercontent.com/ProjectFile.fs
http file:///c:/projects/library.dll will write the file to paket-files/localhost/library.dll

Updating HTTP dependencies

If you want to update a file you need to use the paket install command or paket update command with --force option.

Using groups for HTTP-dependent files can be helpful to reduce the number of files that are reinstalled.