Building Ice Applications for .NET

This page provides important information for .NET developers.

On this page:

Building Ice Applications for .NET with Visual Studio

Install the following software and then refer to the Ice Builder for Visual Studio instructions:

  1. The Ice Builder for Visual Studio extension
  2. The zeroc.ice.net NuGet package described later on this page
  3. With Visual Studio 2017, 2019, and 2022.

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Building Ice Applications for .NET with the .NET 6.0 SDK or .NET 7.0 SDK

Install the following software and then refer to the Ice Builder for MSBuild instructions:

  1. The .NET 6.0 SDK or the .NET 7.0 SDK for your operating system

  2. The zeroc.ice.net NuGet package described later on this page
  3. The slice2cs compiler

slice2cs is a command-line tool written in C++ and available on most platforms

PlatformDistributionPackage with slice2cs
Debian, Ubuntuapt packages

zeroc-ice-compilers

Amazon Linux, RedHat Enterprise Linux, SUSE LinuxRPMs

ice-compilers

WindowsNuGetzeroc.ice.net
macOSHomebrewice

On Windows, you can use Ice Builder for Visual Studio to configure Ice Builder for MSBuild.

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Programming Language

You can use any .NET programming language with Ice, however, the preferred programming language for Ice .NET applications is C# since:

  • the only Slice language mapping for .NET is Slice to C#
  • the only Slice compiler for .NET, slice2cs, generates C# code
  • Ice for .NET is itself written in C#

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zeroc.ice.net NuGet Package

The Ice for .NET (zeroc.ice.net) NuGet package is organized as follows:

Folder
Contents
lib\net45Assemblies for .NET Framework 4.5.1
lib\netstandard2.0Assemblies for .NET Standard 2.0
toolsslice2cs.exe (Windows-only native tools)
tools\net45

iceboxnet.exe app for .NET Framework 4.5.1, bzip2.dll Windows x64 native library

tools\net6.0
iceboxnet.dll app for .NET 6.0,  bzip2.dll Windows x64 native library
tools\net7.0

iceboxnet.dll app for .NET 7.0,  bzip2.dll Windows x64 native library

buildMSBuild support files
sliceSlice files


Adding zeroc.ice.net to a Visual Studio or MSBuild project imports props files from the build folder into that project.

The props file defines the following properties:

Name
Value
Description
IceVersion3.7Ice string version
IceIntVersion30710Ice version as a numeric value
IceVersionMM3.7Major Minor version
IceSoVersion37Version used in dynamic libraries
IceNugetPackageVersion3.7.10NuGet package numeric version
IceHome$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)..\..Full path to the package root folder
IceToolsPath$(IceHome)\toolsFull path to the tools folder

These properties are used by Ice Builder, and you can also use them in custom build steps.

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.NET Framework and .NET Standard Assemblies

zeroc.ice.net includes two sets of Ice assemblies: one set of assemblies for the .NET Framework 4.5 and another set for .NET Standard 2.0.

These assemblies are the same except for the differences described below:


.NET Framework 4.5 Assemblies.NET Standard 2.0 Assemblies
Run-time platformWindows Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows
Target Framework.NET Framework 4.5.1 or greater on WindowsAny implementation of .NET Standard 2.0, including .NET 6.0, .NET 7.0, and .NET Framework 4.6.1.
Ice properties can be read from the Windows Registry(tick)(error)
Signals caught by Ice.ApplicationSignal catching implemented using the Windows native function SetConsoleCtrlHandler.Signal catching implemented using the portable .NET event Console.KeyPress.

The .NET Standard 2.0 assemblies are expected to work with any .NET implementation of .NET Standard 2.0, however, they are tested primarily with .NET 6.0, and .NET 7.0 on Linux, macOS, and Windows.

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Compression with bzip2

Ice for .NET supports the optional compression of Ice requests and responses using the bzip2 native library. The bzip2 native DLL for Windows x64 is included in the zeroc.ice.net package. You can use the bzip2 system library on Linux and macOS.

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Using the Sample Programs

Sample programs are available at the ice-demos GitHub repository. You can browse this repository to see build and usage instructions for all supported programming languages. You can clone this repository with:

git clone -b 3.7 https://github.com/zeroc-ice/ice-demos.git
cd ice-demos

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