CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netminimal-apisnative-aot
Newbie
Newbie

Reputation: 63

What is the difference between the .NET Minimal API and .NET AOT and how does it relate to each other if they are?

I have searched on the Internet, and I couldn't find a concrete explanation regarding this.

I have used the Minimal API before, and when I am using the .NET AOT, the project source code seems different except for the endpoints are still in the Program.cs file.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 423

Answers (2)

Guru Stron
Guru Stron

Reputation: 141565

Native AOT for ASP.NET Core was added with .NET 8 - check out the corresponding section of the What's new in ASP.NET Core 8.0 doc.

ASP.NET Core support for Native AOT doc covers the feature in more detail. First of all you should notice Minimal APIs are supported partially (and MVC is not supported at all):

Feature Fully Supported Partially Supported Not Supported
gRPC ✔️Fully supported
Minimal APIs ✔️Partially supported
MVC ❌Not supported
Blazor Server ❌Not supported
SignalR ❌Not supported
JWT Authentication ✔️Fully supported
Other Authentication ❌Not supported
CORS ✔️Fully supported
... ... ... ...

The main difference in the template itself comes from the fact that reflection APIs are not supported in the Native AOT so you need to switch to source generation for System.Text.Json (see the Minimal APIs and JSON payloads section of the docs too):

builder.Services.ConfigureHttpJsonOptions(options =>
{
options.SerializerOptions.TypeInfoResolverChain.Insert(0, AppJsonSerializerContext.Default);
});

[JsonSerializable(typeof(Todo[]))]
internal partial class AppJsonSerializerContext : JsonSerializerContext
{

}

Without this added code, System.Text.Json uses reflection to serialize and deserialize JSON. Reflection isn't supported in Native AOT.

The second noticable difference is usage of CreateSlimBuilder method instead of CreateBuilder. For more details see the CreateSlimBuilder vs CreateBuilder section of the docs.

Upvotes: 1

user1154422
user1154422

Reputation: 656

Different but can be used together. Minimal API has to do with streamlining HTTP calls and AOT creates machine code. AOT can take the Minimal API code along with the rest of the app/DLL and create machine code.

Upvotes: 1

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