How can MSBuild detect the version of .NET Core?

Question

In MSBuild project file (e.g., *.csproj), I can detect if it is using .NET Core or .NET Framework or Mono by checking MSBuildRuntimeType property: '$(MSBuildRuntimeType)'!='Core'. In the similar fashion, can I detect what version of .NET Core (e.g., 2.1, 2.2, 3.0, 3.1) is it?

Answer 1

You can get it like this:

System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation.FrameworkDescription.ToString();

This will return the version like this.

.NET Core 3.1.0

You can assign a property in MSBuild like this:

<MSBuildRuntimeVersion>$([System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation]:: FrameworkDescription.ToString())</MSBuildRuntimeVersion>

Update:

Based on @minhee's comment I came to know that the above solution is not working .NET Core 2.2 or older version. I did some research on this and found that it was a breaking change in CoreFx in which APIs that report version is now reporting product and not file version.

This thing is introduced in .NET Core 3.0 and I am not aware of that because I am not using .NET Core 2.2 or older.

With that said, I would like to propose another solution which is working with all versions of .NET Core.

Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().GetCustomAttribute<TargetFrameworkAttribute>().FrameworkName;

Here, you will get version number as below.

.NETCoreApp,Version=v3.0

I have tested this code with the following versions in a console application.

.NET Core 2.0
.NET Core 2.1
.NET Core 2.2
.NET Core 3.0
.NET Core 3.1

In MSBuild:

You can check the same thing in the MSBuild also.

For example, In the below .csproj file I have defined the two message tasks based on the condition of the target framework. So, If I build the project with the target framework as netcoreapp2.2 then it will print "Happy 2020..." in build log and if I build the project with target framework as netcoreapp3.0 then it will print "Happy New Year..." in the build log.

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
    <Target Name="FooName" BeforeTargets="Build" Condition="'$(TargetFrameworkVersion)'=='v3.0'">
        <Message Text="Happy New Year..." Importance="High" />
    </Target>
    <Target Name="FooName" BeforeTargets="Build" Condition="'$(TargetFrameworkVersion)'=='v2.2'">
        <Message Text="Happy 2020..." Importance="High" />
    </Target>
    <PropertyGroup>
        <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
        <TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.2</TargetFramework>
        <RootNamespace>New_folder</RootNamespace>
    </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

So, you can use TargetFrameworkVersion property to detect the current version of .NET Core in the MSBuild.

I hope this will help you.