When using .NET Standard facades on .NET Framework, automatic binding redirects should be enabled

We now automatically inject facades into the .NET Framework compilation when consuming a library that targets .NET Standard.

We need to make sure that when these facades are injected, that we forcefully enable automatic generation of binding redirects. That’s necessary because we deploy files that might have higher versions then what the .NET Standard binary is referencing. These files aren’t necessarily part of the runtime unification table or are explicitly opted-out by a minor version bump.

In non-SDK-style projects, the property <AutoGenerateBindingRedirects> is defaulted to false and relies on project templates to be set. The latter is only the case when the project got created targeting .NET Framework 4.5.1 or later. When an existing project is upgraded to 4.5.1 or later, the property is still false. I suggest we set it to true when we detect .NET Standard facades are needed.

My understanding is that in SDK-style projects the <AutoGenerateBindingRedirects> is already true if the project is targeting .NET Framework and producing an application.

[terrajobst]

I’d say this is a very severe bug we need to fix.

Scenario

• The customer has an existing application targeting .NET Framework 4.5 or lower
• The customer retargets the app to .NET Framework 4.6.1
• The customer references a .NET Standard 1.6 class library (P2P or NuGet)
• Customers runs the app

Expected Behavior

The app works.

Actual Behavior

The application crashes with FileNotFoundException:

Unhandled Exception: System.IO.FileLoadException:
Could not load file or assembly 'System.Runtime, Version=4.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' or one of its dependencies.
The located assembly's manifest definition does not match the assembly reference. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131040)
   at ConsoleApp3.Program.Main(String[] args)

Manually setting AutoGenerateBindingRedirect to True solves the problem, but there are no UI affordances for it and the error message isn’t actionable.

[terrajobst]

Weird, I thought I had verified that I get zero warnings. Turns out you’re correct, I get this:

In that case I think I’m OK with this being fixed in 2.1.