Introduction to .NET project files

Starting with Visual COBOL 7.0, .NET projects make use of the Micro Focus project SDK. The project SDK is versioned and supplied as a NuGet package in the NuGetPackages folder in the product installation, with the version being used defined in the project's global.json file.

When working with .NET projects that use the Micro Focus project SDK, you can create, build, and run the projects using the relevant dotnet commands or you can continue to use the Visual Studio IDE to perform the same tasks.

If a new version of the Micro Focus project SDK is supplied, there will be an updated NuGet package, and your .NET projects will need to be updated. This involves simply editing the global.json file to specify the new version number of the package:

.NET projects opened in the Visual Studio IDE will be upgraded automatically.
.NET projects that you work on with dotnet commands need to have the new version number specified in their global.json files.

Important: Visual Studio 2022 requires that the global.json file of .NET projects is placed at the directory level of the solution file in order for the project to successfully open and build. In previous versions of Visual Studio, the file could be located in subfolders of the solution such as in the project folder.

This can affect existing .NET Core 3.1 COBOL projects that you upgrade from a prior release if the global.json file is not at the directory level of the solution file. It also affects .NET 8 COBOL projects that you add to an existing solution.

In these cases, you might receive the following error message if building from the MSBuild command line, or in the IDE Output window if the project fails to load:

"The SDK 'MicroFocus.Sdk' specified could not be found"

To work around this issue, you need to move the global.json file to the directory level of the solution file.

New .NET 8 COBOL solutions and projects created with VS2022 create the global.json file in the required location.