Announcing .NET 8 Preview 2

Alexandra Barry

March 14th, 202315 11

We’re excited to share what’s new in .NET 8 Preview 2. This release is a quick follow-up to the larger Preview 1 release. You’ll continue to see many more features show up with these monthly releases. .NET 6 and 7 users will want to follow this release closely. We’ve focused on making it a straightforward upgrade path.

You can download .NET 8 Preview 2 for Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Check out what’s new in ASP.NET Core and EF Core in the Preview 2 release. Stay current with what’s new and coming in What’s New in .NET 8. It will be kept updated throughout the release.

.NET 8 has been tested with 17.6 Preview 2. We recommend that you use the preview channel builds if you want to try .NET 8 with the Visual Studio family of products. Visual Studio for Mac support for .NET 8 isn’t yet available.

Let’s take a look at some new features.

Download .NET 8 Preview 2

Libraries

The new features in Preview 2 are in the libraries.

System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations Extensions

We’ve introduced extensions to the built-in validation attributes in System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.

RequiredAttribute.DisallowAllDefaultValues

The RequiredAttribute now allows validating that structs do not equal their default values. For example:

[Required(DisallowAllDefaultValues = true)]
public Guid MyGuidValue { get; set; }

This example will fail validation if its value equals Guid.Empty.

RangeAttribute exclusive bounds

Users can now specify exclusive bounds in their range validation:

[Range(0d, 1d, MinimumIsExclusive = true, MaximumIsExclusive = true)]
public double Sample { get; set; }

This attribute accepts any values in the open interval but rejects the boundary values 0 and 1.

LengthAttribute

The LengthAttribute can now be used to set both lower and upper bounds for strings or collections:

[Length(10, 20)] // Require at least 10 elements and at most 20 elements.
public ICollection<int> Values { get; set; }

AllowedValuesAttribute and DeniedValuesAttribute

These attributes can be used to specify allow lists and deny lists for validating a property:

[AllowedValues("apple", "banana", "mango")]
public string Fruit { get; set; }

[DeniedValues("pineapple", "anchovy", "broccoli")]
public string PizzaTopping { get; set; }

Base64StringAttribute

As the name suggests, this attribute validates that a given string is a valid Base64 representation.

System.Reflection: introspection support for function pointers

Function pointers were added as part of .NET 5 and C# 9, however, we didn’t add a matching experience for the feature in Reflection. This new feature adds the capability to obtain function pointer metadata via Reflection, including parameter types, the return type and the calling conventions. Previously, the IntPtr type was used for a function pointer type such as with typeof(delegate*<void>()) or when obtaining a function pointer type through reflection such as with FieldInfo.FieldType.

A function pointer instance, which is a physical address to a function, continues to be represented as an IntPtr; only the reflection type was changed with this feature.This new functionality is currently implemented in the CoreCLR runtime and in MetadataLoadContext. Support for the Mono and NativeAOT runtimes are expected later.

An example using reflection:

FieldInfo fieldInfo = typeof(MyClass).GetField(nameof(MyClass._fp));

// Obtain the function pointer type from a field. This used to be the 'IntPtr' type, now it's 'Type':
Type fpType = fieldInfo.FieldType;

// New methods to determine if a type is a function pointer:
Console.WriteLine(fpType.IsFunctionPointer); // True
Console.WriteLine(fpType.IsUnmanagedFunctionPointer); // True

// New methods to obtain the return and parameter types:
Console.WriteLine($"Return type: {fpType.GetFunctionPointerReturnType()}"); // System.Void

foreach (Type parameterType in fpType.GetFunctionPointerParameterTypes())
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Parameter type: {parameterType}"); // System.Int32&
}

// Access to custom modifiers and calling conventions requires a "modified type":
Type modifiedType = fieldInfo.GetModifiedFieldType();

// A modified type forwards most members to its underlying type which can be obtained with Type.UnderlyingSystemType:
Type normalType = modifiedType.UnderlyingSystemType;

// New methods to obtain the calling conventions:
foreach (Type callConv in modifiedType.GetFunctionPointerCallingConventions())
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Calling convention: {callConv}");
    // System.Runtime.CompilerServices.CallConvSuppressGCTransition
    // System.Runtime.CompilerServices.CallConvCdecl
}

// New methods to obtain the custom modifiers:
foreach (Type modreq in modifiedType.GetFunctionPointerParameterTypes()[0].GetRequiredCustomModifiers())
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Required modifier for first parameter: {modreq }");
    // System.Runtime.InteropServices.InAttribute
}

// Sample class that contains a function pointer field:
public unsafe class MyClass
{
    public delegate* unmanaged[Cdecl, SuppressGCTransition]<in int, void> _fp;
}

Parameterized types including generics, pointers, and arrays such as an array of function pointers (e.g. delegate*<void>[]) are supported. Thus, the Type.ElementType property and the Type.GetGenericArguments() method can be used to obtain further types which ultimately may be a function pointer. In addition, a function pointer parameter type is allowed to be another function pointer type.

Closing

.NET 8 Preview 2 offers a short, but exciting array of theme updates, new features, and improvements.

We want to extend our sincere thanks to everyone who has contributed to .NET 8 so far, whether it was through code contributions, bug reports, or providing feedback. Your contributions have been instrumental in the making .NET 8 Previews, and we look forward to continuing to work together to build a brighter future for .NET and the entire technology community.

What are you waiting for? Go see for yourself what’s next in .NET!

Alexandra Barry Product Manager, .NET Team/NuGet

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15 comments

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  • Victor Irzak 5

    Primary constructors seem to be missing from this post.

  • Andrew Turrentine 0

    For the “RangeAttribute exclusive bounds” example, when IsBoundExclusive is false it reads to me like the bound is not exclusive so would be inclusive. Setting IsBoundExclusive to false causing the validation behavior to invalidate the boundary value as input is the opposite of what I would expect. Basically if you set the boundary values as not exclusive, I would expect a closed interval.

    • Genevieve WarrenMicrosoft employee 3

      Thanks – it’s been fixed in the example (note that the property names changed too).

  • Andrew Witte 1

    What is the runtime overhead of [Range] and [Length]?

  • gf s 0

    It seems that compared to preview1, the .net team with hundreds of people does not seem to have made any significant results this month.

    • Jorge Morales Vidal 0

      Let’s wait and see, we still have several months ahead until November 2023, when .NET 8 is going to be released.

  • Jim Foye 1

    Too many versions of .NET. Can I safely target the ones that are released today? That is not clear to me. Plus, I still can’t use VS 2022 because WPF is a second class citizen, and you made sure I can’t use VS 2019 to target later versions of .NET. I need to write first class LOB applications for corporate customers. WPF has been the best way to do that for desktop applications on Windows, and it’s been “superseded” already by UWP, WinUI, Xamarin, Maui, and I don’t know what else, some of which are already deprecated, all of which are inferior to WPF. Is .NET 8 going to help me write better WPF applications? What’s with all the SO questions about weird problems doing WPF apps in .NET Core, and installing them? I want nothing to do with that.

    • Jorge Morales Vidal 0

      You can stick with .NET Framework 4.8 in your WPF app, it’s supported as long as Windows 10 and 11 are supported. If you find problems with WPF in .NET 6, 7 or 8, you can report it in GitHub: https://github.com/dotnet/wpf

      • Jim Foye 0

        That repo might as well not exist.

        • Mike Diack 0

          Just out of interest, how do you mean Jim when you say “That repo might as well not exist”. I think I can see what you are talking about – in that it doesn’t mention anything newer than .Net 7 preview…

  • Anthony T. 1

    You have a bug on the code example for the AllowedValuesAttribute and DeniedValuesAttribute feature. In the code example, you erroneously have “pineapple” with the DeniedValues. This is a glaring, critical, show-stopping bug. Please fix.

  • John King 0

    what about the URLBase64 ? and Stream base Base64/UrlBase64 ?

  • Andrew Stanton 0

    Myself and others agree with Andrew T. The Bound properties on the Range Attribute need to be renamed. “Exclusive” is ambiguous and will no doubt get misused. “Included” would be clearer. Since these comments will undoubtedly be closed soon, there is more description and discussion is happening over here https://github.com/dotnet/core/issues/8134#issuecomment-1483911888

  • Jerry Zuckerman 0

    What about support for C++ in any version of .NET beyond 4.8??
    I have no intention of porting my apps to C# or even starting anything new in C#.

    • Mike Diack 0

      I totally agree Jerry. What is the Managed C++ roadmap if any?

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