Add `dotnet tool update --all` option

Request

When multiple tools are installed, either globally or locally, it becomes hard to keep track of which tools are outdated and which are not, and updating all outdated tools is time-consuming and boring copy-paste work, since the package id of each installed package needs to be provided to the dotnet tool update command.

I propose to add the --all (alias: -a) option to the dotnet tool update command. This option would simply run dotnet tool list internally and use the results obtained from that command to get the package ids that are installed. Then the dotnet tool update command could be called with each of these package ids.

Background

Updating all installed programs is very usual operation for package maintance application to do. apt upgrade on Debian/Ubuntu, npm upgrade for NPM, etc.

I have encountered the same problem in Python, however, there one can (semi-)easily write a Windows CMD FOR command that uses the pip list --outdated --format=freeze command.

Currently, the only way to update all packages installed with dotnet tool is to parse the output of dotnet tool list. That means I now have to write a PowerShell script that ignores the first two lines (the header and header-splitter) and parses the package id from the start of the line to the first whitespace. Yes, it’s doable, but it would be much more convenient to have a command that just does all that for you. Also, adding an option in the actual executable means that dotnet can use it’s own data representation of the information on the installed packages, and thus does not have to be subject to changes in the output format, invalid characters when printed to the console, and all that stuff.

Environment data

dotnet --info output:

.NET Core SDK (reflecting any global.json):
 Version:   3.0.100-preview-009812
 Commit:    e3abf6e935

Runtime Environment:
 OS Name:     Windows
 OS Version:  10.0.17763
 OS Platform: Windows
 RID:         win10-x64
 Base Path:   C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\3.0.100-preview-009812\

Host (useful for support):
  Version: 3.0.0-preview-27122-01
  Commit:  00c5c8bc40

.NET Core SDKs installed:
  1.1.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.0.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.0.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.0.3 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.1 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.4 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.100 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.101 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.102 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.103 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.104 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.200 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.201 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.202 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.400 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.401 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.402 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.500-preview-009335 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.500 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.502 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.503 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.504 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.600-preview-009426 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.1.600-preview-009497 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.2.100-preview1-009349 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  2.2.102 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  3.0.100-preview-009812 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]

.NET Core runtimes installed:
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.4 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.5 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.6 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.7 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.8 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.2.0-preview1-35029 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.2.1 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.4 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.5 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.6 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.7 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.8 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.2.0-preview1-35029 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.2.1 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 3.0.0-preview-18579-0056 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 1.0.5 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 1.1.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.0.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.0.3 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.0.5 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.0.6 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.0.7 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.0.9 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.3-servicing-26724-03 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.4 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.5 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.6 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.7 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.8 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.2.0-preview-26820-02 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.2.1 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 3.0.0-preview-27122-01 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App 3.0.0-alpha-27128-4 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App]

[tebeco]

well the idea of this issue i 0 custom scripts 😉 it should be first built in to be useable on CI / DevBox

• It should be part of dotnet tool it self
• no third part script/tool to request a tool (dotnet) to update a tool (that should hurt people just to read this sentence ^^) I mean i love contributions/ open source / etc … but this is not suitable for CI / Team project to add that kind of layer complexity. I wonder what it would take to bring contribution to the CLI itself so that literally everyone benefits of it from the very moment you have dotnet
• works for global tool if --global
• works for local tool (manifest) if --local
• install should be seem less if already installed and just update
• it should support something like --all if no name provided

[fredrikhr]

@Themodem yeah, I personally prefer the one below, but I agree that it is still horribly ugly…

foreach ($package in $(dotnet tool list --global | Select-Object -Skip 2)) {
    Write-Host "dotnet tool update --global $($package.Split(" ", 2)[0])"
    dotnet tool update --global $($package.Split(" ", 2)[0])
}