Switching Between .NET Core SDK Versions

In this article, we’ll learn how we can switch between the versions of the .NET Core SDK as per our needs.

If you have worked on one project that used .NET Core version 2.1 and then you installed .NET Core 3.0 Preview, you will get an SDK error while trying to run your .NET Core 2.1 project. This is because your current SDK version has changed to 3.0

A big advantage of .NET Core is that it installs .NET Core SDKs separately, so the new SDK does not affect the previously installed SDK. You can see all the installed SDKs under "C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk".

👁 Switching Between .NET Core SDK Versions

First, we are going to see how we can view our current SDK version on the machine. By default, it will be the latest installed version (the SDK you installed at last).

To view your current SDK version, follow the below steps.

Open the command prompt and type the below command.

dotnet --version

👁 Switching Between .NET Core SDK Versions

To view all installed SDKs, follow the below steps.

Open the command prompt and execute the following command: dotnet --info. This will show the list of all available SDKs on your system.    

👁 Switching Between .NET Core SDK Versions

Checking the Version of Your .NET Core Project

Open your project's source folder and, in the address bar, type "cmd" and press Enter. It will open the command prompt with the project path. 👁 Switching Between .NET Core SDK Versions

Execute the following command:  dotnet --version.👁 Switching Between .NET Core SDK Versions
It will display your project's current SDK version,i.e., 2.1.503 in our case. 

Now, we are going to change this version to Core 3.0. For that, type the below command and press Enter.

dotnet new globaljson --sdk-version 3.0.100-preview-010184 --force 

👁 Switching Between .NET Core SDK Versions
 

👁 Switching Between .NET Core SDK Versions

It will create a "global.json" file which is stored in the folder of the current version of your project's SDK. 

{  
  "sdk": {  
    "version": "3.0.100-preview-010184"  
  }  
}

To create the "global.json" file in the current directory folder, you need to fire this command:  

dotnet new globaljson 

This will create a "global.json" file and, by default, it is set to the latest version.

Summary

Here, we have changed the current SDK version of our project and learned how we can view, upgrade, or downgrade the SDK. It's very easy to control the SDK version in .NET Core. Feel free to leave feedback/comment/questions related to this article in the comments section.