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Russell Myers
Russell Myers

Reputation: 2017

C# .NET 3.0/3.5 features in 2.0 using Visual Studio 2008

What are some of the new features that can be used in .NET 2.0 that are specific to C# 3.0/3.5 after upgrading to Visual Studio 2008? Also, what are some of the features that aren't available?

Available

Not Available

Upvotes: 13

Views: 2860

Answers (7)

Lucas
Lucas

Reputation: 17424

You can use any new C# 3.0 feature that is handled by the compiler by emitting 2.0-compatible IL and doesn't reference any of the new 3.5 assemblies:

  • Lambdas (used as Func<..>, not Expression<Func<..>> )
  • Extension methods (by declaring an empty System.Runtime.CompilerServices.ExtensionAttribute)
  • Automatic properties
  • Object Initializers
  • Collection Initializers
  • LINQ to Objects (by implementing IEnumerable<T> extension methods, see LinqBridge)

Upvotes: 16

Omer Mor
Omer Mor

Reputation: 5216

You can use Mono's version of the System.Core which fully supports LINQ & Expression Trees. I compiled its source against .net 2.0, and now I can use it in my .net2.0 projects. This is great for projects that needs to be deployed on win2k, where .net3.5 is not available.

Upvotes: 2

Jon Skeet
Jon Skeet

Reputation: 1500065

I cover this in an article on my site.

Almost all C# 3.0 features are available when targeting .NET 2.0. For extension methods, you need to define an extra attribute. Expression trees aren't available at all. Query expression support is based on a translation followed by "normal" C# rules, so you'll need something to provide the Select, Where etc methods. LINQBridge is the de facto standard "LINQ to Objects in .NET 2.0" implementation. You may well want to declare the delegates in the Func and Action delegate families to make it easier to work with lambda expressions - and then remove them if/when you move to .NET 3.5

Upvotes: 5

Marc Gravell
Marc Gravell

Reputation: 1062600

Pretty much everything! Daniel Moth covers this here and here. That only leaves runtime support: LINQ-to-Objects is provided by LINQBridge - which leaves just bigger APIs like Expression support, and tools like LINQ-to-SQL. These are too big to be reasonably ported back to .NET 2.0, so I'd use .NET 3.5 for these.

Upvotes: 5

Kev
Kev

Reputation: 119806

There was a previous discussion about something similar you may also want to read too:

Targeting .NET Framework 3.5, Using .NET 2.0 Runtime. Caveats?

Upvotes: 2

Curt Hagenlocher
Curt Hagenlocher

Reputation: 20916

To define extension methods, you'll need to supply the following class if you're targeting .NET 2.0:

namespace System.Runtime.CompilerServices {
  [AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Method | AttributeTargets.Class | AttributeTargets.Assembly)]
    sealed class ExtensionAttribute : Attribute { }
}

Upvotes: 3

James Curran
James Curran

Reputation: 103495

Lambdas & Extension methods are handled purely by the compiler and can be used with the .Net 2.0 framework.

Upvotes: 1

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