The latest version of .Net also known as .Net core is now cross-platform with support for Linux and Mac OSX in addition to Windows. I've been planning to try this out for some time now, and with the latest version of .Net core RC2 out I decided to give this a try.

I'll be covering the steps to develop and run a simple .Net core console application that prints a simple Hello World on the screen.

I tried this out on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS distribution. However, the steps are almost similar to any other flavor of Linux. Most of it also holds for OSX too.

• Firstly download the latest version of Visual Studio Code.

  • This is the latest cross-platform editor from Microsoft.

  • It runs on Windows, Linux and Mac.

  • You may download the same from here.

• Next, you need to install the C# extension for Visual Studio Code.

  • This provides syntax highlighting, IntelliSense, debugging support etc.

  • You may download the same from here.

• Install .Net core libraries on the platform of your choice.

  • This is the new set of cross-platform libraries that includes the .Net framework (with a reduced footprint) as well as the CLR.

  • This can be downloaded from here.

With this, we can now open the Linux terminal and check if the .Net core is installed properly. To do this, run the following command.

dotnet --info

For .Net core RC2 installed on Ubuntu 14.04, the output would be as follows...

sundeep@sundeep-XPS-L501X:~/Documents/dev/netfirst$ dotnet --info
.NET Command Line Tools (1.0.0-preview1-002702)

Product Information:
 Version:     1.0.0-preview1-002702
 Commit Sha:  6cde21225e

Runtime Environment:
 OS Name:     ubuntu
 OS Version:  14.04
 OS Platform: Linux
 RID:         ubuntu.14.04-x64

You can also check the options available with the new dotnet command line tool.

dotnet --help

Output:

sundeep@sundeep-XPS-L501X:~/Documents/dev/netfirst$ dotnet --help
.NET Command Line Tools (1.0.0-preview1-002702)
Usage: dotnet [common-options] [command] [arguments]

Arguments:
  [command]     The command to execute
  [arguments]   Arguments to pass to the command

Common Options (passed before the command):
  -v|--verbose  Enable verbose output
  --version     Display .NET CLI Version Number
  --info        Display .NET CLI Info

Common Commands:
  new           Initialize a basic .NET project
  restore       Restore dependencies specified in the .NET project
  build         Builds a .NET project
  publish       Publishes a .NET project for deployment (including the runtime)
  run           Compiles and immediately executes a .NET project
  test          Runs unit tests using the test runner specified in the project
  pack          Creates a NuGet package

We can now proceed toward developing the cross-platform console application. Create a new folder to create your application and navigate to it.

mkdir HelloWorldApp
cd HelloWorldApp

Use the dotnet command line tool to create the console application.

dotnet new

This will create the following files in the project folder

sundeep@sundeep-XPS-L501X:~/Documents/dev/HelloWorldApp$ dotnet new
Created new C# project in /home/sundeep/Documents/dev/HelloWorldApp.
sundeep@sundeep-XPS-L501X:~/Documents/dev/HelloWorldApp$ ls
Program.cs  project.json

The Program.cs file is similar to the file that we had in the earlier .Net frameworks. It has the main method which serves as the entry point for the console application.

using System;

namespace ConsoleApplication
{
    public class Program
    {
        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
        }
    }
}

The project.json file is similar to the csproj file that was part of the earlier .Net projects.

{
  "version": "1.0.0-*",
  "buildOptions": {
    "emitEntryPoint": true
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "Microsoft.NETCore.App": {
      "type": "platform",
      "version": "1.0.0-rc2-3002702"
    }
  },
  "frameworks": {
    "netcoreapp1.0": {
      "imports": "dnxcore50"
    }
  }
}

This has configuration details like the .Net core framework version being used, the dependent assemblies being used etc. The dependent/referenced assemblies are all Nuget packages that are downloaded on the fly from Nuget repositories. (This is somewhat similar to the Maven repository system that we have in Java). These must be downloaded before we can run the application. To do this run the following on the terminal...

dotnet restore

sundeep@sundeep-XPS-L501X:~/Documents/dev/HelloWorldApp$ ls
Program.cs  project.json
sundeep@sundeep-XPS-L501X:~/Documents/dev/HelloWorldApp$ dotnet restore
log  : Restoring packages for /home/sundeep/Documents/dev/HelloWorldApp/project.json...
info :   GET https://api.nuget.org/v3-flatcontainer/microsoft.netcore.dotnethostresolver/index.json
info :   OK https://api.nuget.org/v3-flatcontainer/microsoft.netcore.dotnethostresolver/index.json 1052ms
info :   GET https://api.nuget.org/v3-flatcontainer/microsoft.netcore.dotnethost/index.json
info :   OK https://api.nuget.org/v3-flatcontainer/microsoft.netcore.dotnethost/index.json 1043ms
info : Committing restore...
log  : Writing lock file to disk. Path: /home/sundeep/Documents/dev/HelloWorldApp/project.lock.json
log  : /home/sundeep/Documents/dev/HelloWorldApp/project.json
log  : Restore completed in 12204ms.

NuGet Config files used:
    /home/sundeep/.nuget/NuGet/NuGet.Config

Feeds used:
    https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json

dotnet build

Output:

sundeep@sundeep-XPS-L501X:~/Documents/dev/HelloWorldApp$ dotnet build
Project HelloWorldApp (.NETCoreApp,Version=v1.0) will be compiled because expected outputs are missing
Compiling HelloWorldApp for .NETCoreApp,Version=v1.0

Compilation succeeded.
    0 Warning(s)
    0 Error(s)

Time elapsed 00:00:05.9934574

Now that the compilation has succeeded, we may now run the console application using

dotnet run

Output:

sundeep@sundeep-XPS-L501X:~/Documents/dev/HelloWorldApp$ dotnet run
Project HelloWorldApp (.NETCoreApp,Version=v1.0) was previously compiled. Skipping compilation.
Hello World!

With this, we have now successfully created a console application on Linux using the new cross-platform .Net core libraries.

Hope this was useful!