.NET Core, .NET Standard, .NET 5 Support

[alexguerin4]

Not really an issue, just wondering how compatible this project is with .Net 5 apps?

[mkaring]

Not at all. The support for the core-like versions of .NET is broken with .NET Core 3 onwards.

[alex6dj]

Is any work in progress with this

[NotoriousRebel]

What is broken from .NET Core 3 onwards? If the project was targeting .NET Standard 2.1 (or earlier versions) would that still be the case? Would really like to use Confuser.Core.dll within a project, that is written in .NET 5, I suppose I can just go the subprocess route; however, that is not necessarily ideal.

[mkaring]

The problem is the assembly resolving.
The releases/2.0 is the furthest when it comes to preparing for the new versions of .NET, because that one has at least a proper handling for the runtime assemblies that would allow supporting the runtime up to .NET 5.
That does not change that resolving the assembly references currently always snaps back to the .NET Framework that that is something that needs to be adressed.

Everything up to .NET Core 2.x and .NET Standard 2.0 can work when explicitly referencing all the required assemblies in the project file.
.NET Core 3.x, .NET Standard 2.1 and .NET 5.0 I was not able to get working to this day without changes to the current version of ConfuserEx.

@NotoriousRebel: I am unsure if I understand correctly what you are trying to say here. But if you want to use the Confuser.Core.dll in your project, that is an entirely different topic.

The runtimes ConfuserEx is able to obfuscate and the version of .NET ConfuserEx itself uses to run, are two different things.

Now regarding the plan moving forward:

• The proper support for .NET Standard, .NET Core and .NET >= 5, will be part of the 2.0 release. I'm planning to work on that once the 1.5 release that is close to completion now is released.
• ConfuserEx 1.x itself will remain a .NET Framework 4.6.x application. Due to the way the runtime code deployment works, it has to remain a .NET Framework application.
• ConfuserEx 2.x is already mostly migrated to .NET Standard. The command line application works as .NET Core application and only the user interface is currently a .NET Framework 4.6.1 application. The plan is to migrate everything that can't be .NET Standard to .NET 5. The .NET Framework version will be dropped. This does not mean that the support for obfuscating .NET Framework applications will be dropped.

[Davilarek]

So I need to wait some time for v2 release? I have an app with .NET 4 and it won't launch after confusing.

[wmjordan]

The release/2.0 branch has not been updated for months.
Any news?

[maximcus]

Great work @mkaring !
Would you be comfortable sharing some progress update on this issue for those of us waiting?
Perhaps you even have some tentative idea about when it could be done?

[mkaring]

I got a concept on how to approach the problem and a first rough version that works for all the .NET Framework, .NET 5/6, .NET Core and .NET Standard versions. There are still some problems when mixing different versions inside one ConfuserEx project and the performance is… problematic. Also it's not always injecting the correct runtime versions, leading the assemblies that target .NET Standard and .NET Framework at the same time and things like that.
I'm getting there, but there are still some things to smooth out.

I'm expecting a first version that is ready for testing in October.

[lsankar]

Hi, Is there any update on when the first version that works for .net5 will be available? The Aug 19th comment mentions a first version ready for testing this October.