Skip to content

Document relative path limitation and add cross-platform examples for F# Interactive #i directive #49118

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Merged
merged 5 commits into from
Oct 16, 2025
Merged

Document relative path limitation and add cross-platform examples for F# Interactive #i directive #49118

Changes from 4 commits
Commits
Show all changes
5 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
ad6b953
Initial plan
Copilot Oct 13, 2025
4ca4846
Add clarification about relative paths in F# Interactive #i directive
Copilot Oct 13, 2025
f614f64
Update frontmatter with AI usage and current date
Copilot Oct 13, 2025
0516371
Apply suggestions from code review
IEvangelist Oct 16, 2025
40fe633
Fix formatting and clarify package source instructions
IEvangelist Oct 16, 2025
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
21 changes: 17 additions & 4 deletions docs/fsharp/tools/fsharp-interactive/index.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -1,9 +1,10 @@
---
title: F# Interactive (dotnet) Reference
description: Learn how F# Interactive (dotnet fsi) is used to run F# code interactively at the console or to execute F# scripts.
ms.date: 11/29/2020
ms.date: 10/13/2025
f1_keywords:
- VS.ToolsOptionsPages.F#_Tools.F#_Interactive
ai-usage: ai-assisted
---
# Interactive programming with F\#

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -170,17 +171,29 @@

### Specifying a package source

You can also specify a package source with the `#i` command. The following example specifies a remote and a local source:
You can also specify a package source with the `#i` command. The following examples specify remote and local sources:

```fsharp
#i "nuget: https://my-remote-package-source/index.json"
#i """nuget: C:\path\to\my\local\source"""
#i "nuget: /Users/username/path/to/my/local/source"
#i "nuget: /home/username/path/to/my/local/source"
```

This will tell the resolution engine under the covers to also take into account the remote and/or local sources added to a script.
This tells the resolution engine to take into account the remote and/or local sources added to a script.

You can specify as many package references as you like in a script.
You can specify as many package sources as you like in a script.

> [!IMPORTANT]
> Relative paths aren't currently supported with the `#i` directive. You must use absolute paths for local package sources. This limitation is tracked in [dotnet/fsharp#12969](https://github.com/dotnet/fsharp/issues/12969).
>

Check failure on line 189 in docs/fsharp/tools/fsharp-interactive/index.md

View workflow job for this annotation

GitHub Actions / lint

Multiple spaces after blockquote symbol 

docs/fsharp/tools/fsharp-interactive/index.md:189:3 MD027/no-multiple-space-blockquote Multiple spaces after blockquote symbol [Context: ">  "] https://github.com/DavidAnson/markdownlint/blob/v0.38.0/doc/md027.md
> **Workaround:** You can programmatically construct an absolute path using `__SOURCE_DIRECTORY__` and `System.IO.Path.Combine()`, then use string interpolation to pass it to the `#i` directive. For example:
>

Check failure on line 191 in docs/fsharp/tools/fsharp-interactive/index.md

View workflow job for this annotation

GitHub Actions / lint

Trailing spaces 

docs/fsharp/tools/fsharp-interactive/index.md:191:2 MD009/no-trailing-spaces Trailing spaces [Expected: 0 or 2; Actual: 1] https://github.com/DavidAnson/markdownlint/blob/v0.38.0/doc/md009.md
> ```fsharp
> let localSource = System.IO.Path.Combine(__SOURCE_DIRECTORY__, "relative/path/to/my/local/source")
> #i $"""nuget: {localSource}"""
> ```
>

Check failure on line 196 in docs/fsharp/tools/fsharp-interactive/index.md

View workflow job for this annotation

GitHub Actions / lint

Trailing spaces 

docs/fsharp/tools/fsharp-interactive/index.md:196:2 MD009/no-trailing-spaces Trailing spaces [Expected: 0 or 2; Actual: 1] https://github.com/DavidAnson/markdownlint/blob/v0.38.0/doc/md009.md
> [!NOTE]
> There's currently a limitation for scripts that use framework references (e.g.`Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web` or `Microsoft.NET.Sdk.WindowsDesktop`). Packages like Saturn, Giraffe, WinForms are not available. This is being tracked in issue [#9417](https://github.com/dotnet/fsharp/issues/9417).
> WinForms, still works in the .NET Framework version of F# Interactive.
Expand Down
Loading