Visual Studio 2019 F12 to decompiled source for .NET Core projects

Question

I very often use the Visual Studio F12 to decompiled source feature. When I do this against framework classes in a .NET Core project I very often end up looking at some sort of reference assembly that has no implementation code, just stubs, e.g

Is there any way of getting it to go straight to the actual implementation code instead?

Answer 1

So you see at the top where it lists .Ref at the end of the package name? I'm not positive but I suspect this is trimmed down version of the DLL that doesn't include the full source.

If you search for the dll elsewhere you should be able to find the dll with the full source and decompile that with a standalone decompiler.

So for your example you can find the full dll at C:\Program Files (x86)\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App\3.0.0\Microsoft.AspNetCore.Authentication.Cookies.dll

Personally I prefer using the free decompiler offered by JetBrains called dotPeek. It allows you to navigate directly to the decompiled source using F12, however this will only lead you back to where you are stuck now. BUT if you open the path I listed above for the full DLL and open that in dotPeek, you'll get the full decompiled source code.

As far as I know there's no way to lookup the actual DLL via keyboard shortcut inside the IDE, you have to find the DLL yourself and open it in a decompiler.

Answer 2

Assuming you've downloaded the ILSpy visual studio extension... There is a way to decompile using a keyboard shortcut. Tools->Options->Environment->Keyboard

Press a set of keys for the keyboard shortcut. (I used ctrl i l). Click Assign->OK

Pressing the above keyboard shortcut will now open the selected code decompiled in a new window of ILSpy.