In fsharp/FsAutoComplete we replaced FSharp.Compiler.Service.ProjectCracker with Dotnet.ProjInfo.Workspace.FCS

We can maybe retire projectcracker and update docs to use the new library.

Main Features:

• get FCS project options from sln/list of fsproj/fsx
• use installed msbuild or dotnet, doesnt ship or use msbuild assemblies
• support an easy to use api for loading a workspace (multiple fsprojs or a sln)
• editor features (solution explorer view, background loading with notifications)

Example

let fcs = FSharp.Compiler.SourceCodeServices.FSharpChecker.Create(..)

// environment info
let msbuildLocator = MSBuildLocator()
let netFwInfo = NetFWInfo.Create(NetFWInfoConfig.Default msbuildLocator)

let fcsBinder = FCSBinder(netFwInfo, loader, fcs)

// blocking load of a list of fsproj. For sln use LoadSln
loader.LoadProjects [ projPath ]

// fcsBinder.Projects contains info about loaded projects, use that to convert to FCS args
let fcsPoOpt = fcsBinder.GetProjectOptions(projPath) |> Option.get

// usual parse and check
fcs.ParseAndCheckProject(fcsPo)

Main differences

requirements

require msbuild or dotnet msbuild.
no xbuild.
for mono a recent version in required (>= 5.16 is tested)

fsproj

• support both .NET Sdk (slim) and Old Sdk (verbose) fsproj using the same api
• use msbuild out of process as console, no references to msbuild assemblies. So works with any msbuild or dotnet msbuild.
• support loading a sln or a list of fsproj
• support fsx scripts
• always read fsc arguments from invoked FcsTask (not calculating these from fsproj property). For both .net sdk fsproj and old sdk fsproj.

info about environment

• support discovery of installed msbuild locations
• support .NET Framework versions installed
• sane defaults for default environment (dotnet in PATH, latest .net msbuild)

@dsyme @baronfel @cartermp @KevinRansom What do you think?

If ok, i'll send a PR to remove it and update all docs to use Dotnet.ProjInfo.Workspace.FCS, maintaining the same scenarios.

/cc @Krzysztof-Cieslak