ASP.NET vNext reference to ADO.NET broken

Question

I have a simple ASP.NET vNext class library project which fails to compile when types in System.Data are referenced; what have I done wrong here, or is there a problem in vnext?

I set up my project.json like this:

{
    "dependencies": {
        "System.Data.Common": "1.0.0-alpha3"
    },

    "frameworks": {
        "net451": {
            "dependencies": {
            }
        },
        "k10": {
            "dependencies": {
            }
        }
    }
}

While typing the "System.Data.Common" reference, nuget intellisense worked fine; after saving the file, package restore happened as expected.

Then I added an interface to the project which references System.Data.IDbConnection, like this:

using System.Data;

namespace MyProj.Common.Data
{
    public interface IDbConnectionFactory
    {
        IDbConnection CreateConnection();
    }
}

This bombs at build time:

Error 1 The type or namespace name 'IDbConnection' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?) C:\Users\Administrator\Proj\MyProj\MyProj.Common\Data\IDbConnectionFactory.cs 7 9 MyProj.Common

My KVM list:

C:\Users\Administrator\Proj\MyProj [next +3 ~2 -0 !]> kvm list

Active Version            Runtime Architecture Location                             Alias
------ -------            ------- ------------ --------                             -----
  *    1.0.0-alpha3       svr50   x64          C:\Users\Administrator\.kre\packages default
       1.0.0-alpha3       svr50   x86          C:\Users\Administrator\.kre\packages
       1.0.0-alpha3       svrc50  x64          C:\Users\Administrator\.kre\packages
       1.0.0-alpha3       svrc50  x86          C:\Users\Administrator\.kre\packages
       1.0.0-alpha4-10364 CLR     amd64        C:\Users\Administrator\.kre\packages
       1.0.0-alpha4-10364 CLR     x86          C:\Users\Administrator\.kre\packages
       1.0.0-alpha4-10364 CoreCLR amd64        C:\Users\Administrator\.kre\packages
       1.0.0-alpha4-10364 CoreCLR x86          C:\Users\Administrator\.kre\packages
       1.0.0-alpha4-10365 CLR     amd64        C:\Users\Administrator\.kre\packages
       1.0.0-alpha4-10365 CLR     x86          C:\Users\Administrator\.kre\packages


C:\Users\Administrator\Proj\MyProj [next +3 ~2 -0 !]>

The Can ASP.NET vNext use non-vNext references? question seems very similar, but the error message here is somewhat different, and the nuget intellisense suggests that the ADO.NET packages are built for K10.

Answer 1

IDbConnection is defined in System.Data.dll in the desktop version of .NET. It is not included in System.Data.Common, which contains only a subset of the ADO.NET types that will be available across different versions of the runtime. If you are ok with your application being able to work only against desktop .NET you should be able to reference the full System.Data.dll and use any types from it. If you want to be able to target the CoreCLR based runtime you should stick to types defined in System.Data.Common, e.g. in this case you can use DbConnection.