Detecting .net core 2.0

Question

In a dotnet core 2.0 console application, the output of:

Console.WriteLine("Hello World from "+ System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation.FrameworkDescription);

Is a rather unexpected value:

Hello World from .NET Core 4.6.00001.0

Is there any way to detect .net core 2.0 or later, versus a pre-2.0 .net core platform programmatically? I realize that you probably shouldn't do this in most cases. But in the odd cases where you do need to do this, how would you do this?

Answer 1

You can use preprocessor symbols that are predefined for you. For example:

var isNetCore2 = false;

#if NETCOREAPP2_0
    isNetCore2 = true;
#endif

Console.WriteLine($"Is this .Net Core 2: {isNetCore2}");