Is global.json irrelevant (or dead)?

If you followed our .NET Core 1.0.1 Migration Workflow post you may have noticed that global.json was deleted as part of the migration. Why?

Previously global.json was used primarily for its projects property which specified directories containing project.json files. In effect, this property provided the same behavior as a Visual Studio Solution file (.sln). So, the migration process replaced global.json with a .sln file.

Less frequently used, however, was global.json’s sdk property which specifies which SDK version (in $env:ProgramFiles\dotnet\sdk). While the projects property is ignored, the sdk property is still used.

Consider this global.json:

{
    "projects": [
        "foo", "bar", "Does Not Exist"
    ],
    "sdk": { "version": "1.0.3" }
}

Executing dotnet restore or dotnet build succeeds even though the directories listed in project do not exist. That property is obviously ignored. Changing the sdk version number, however, impacts which tooling the dotnet command uses.

Interested in more details? See How to use Global.json in the .NET Core Tools 1.0 world.

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