DotNetCensus

A dotnet tool to conduct a .NET census - count all of the different .NET versions - on a target directory or GitHub repo. It can also output a CSV file with the results, or conduct a full inventory of all detected project files.

Ever wanted to understand what your .NET portfolio looks like? Do you know what projects are using .NET versions that expired and the amount of technical debt you are managing? Or maybe just looking to have more visibility into your .NET portfolio? DotNet Census is here to help.

How it works

1. It scans for project files (csproj, vbproj, fsproj, vb6proj, etc)
2. It reads the project files and extracts the .NET version
3. It counts the number of projects using each version and outputs the results to the console or csv file
4. If it can't find a project file, it will look for older project formats (such as .NET Core 1 and 1.1 project.json formats, and .NET Framework 3.5 website formats with no project files)
5. Once a project file is found, it will stop scanning subdirectories (Note there is an issue to continue scanning)

DotNet Census currently supports these .NET versions:

• .NET 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, etc
• .NET Core 1 to 3.1 (including older .NET Core 1 and 1.1 project.json formats)
• .NET Framework (including .NET Framework 3.5 website formats with no project files)
• .NET Standard 1 to 2.1

Additionally, this tool supports:

• The main .NET languages, C#, VB.NET, and F#
• *.props files/variables in project files
• VB6 projects (as many are related to VB.NET projects)

Specific details about how we read the version is found in project documentation here.

If we missed a version - please add an issue and we will fix it!

Current limitations:

• Scanning can struggle to identify versions with very very large projects (for example roslyn or aspnetcore) when there are multiple .props file dependencies and/or build variables.

To use

1. This tool requires the .NET 6 or .NET 8 SDK to be installed.
2. Then install: dotnet tool install -g dotnet-census
3. Then run the command in the directory you need to count versions: dotnet census
4. If you have an old version, you can update with: dotnet tool update -g dotnet-census
5. To uninstall, use: dotnet tool uninstall -g dotnet-census

Console arguments

Currently supported options:

dotnet census [-d|--directory <DIRECTORY>] [-o|--owner <Owner or Organization>] [-r|--repo <REPO>] [-u|--user <USERNAME>] [-p|--password <PASSWORD>] [-f|--file <FILE>] [-t|--total] [-i|--inventory]

• -d|--directory: target directory to scan for .NET versions. When used with -o, is used to specify the temp location where the owner/organization repos are cloned.
• -o|--owner: target GitHub owner or organization to scan all repos for .NET versions.
• -r|--repo: target GitHub repo to scan for .NET versions
• -u|--user: target GitHub username to scan for .NET versions. Required when using the repo or owner/organization options
• -p|--password: target GitHub PAT Token to scan for .NET versions. Required when using the repo or owner/organization options
• -f|--file: file path to output and save CSV data.
• -t|--total: Add totals to results. Ignored when used with -i|--inventory
• -i|--inventory: output inventory of all data (instead of the default aggregated summary)

To target a specific directory from anywhere, use the -d argument to specify a target directory:

dotnet census -d c:\users\me\desktop\repos

To add totals to the results, use the -t argument:

dotnet census -t

This is a sample of the results:

Framework             FrameworkFamily  Count  Status          
--------------------------------------------------------------
.NET 5.0              .NET             1      deprecated      
.NET 6.0              .NET             3      supported       
.NET 6.0-android      .NET             1      supported       
.NET 6.0-ios          .NET             1      supported       
.NET 7.0              .NET             1      EOL: 14-May-2024       
.NET 8.0              .NET             1      supported        
.NET 9.0              .NET             1      in preview      
.NET Core 1.0         .NET Core        1      deprecated      
.NET Core 1.1         .NET Core        1      deprecated      
.NET Core 2.0         .NET Core        1      deprecated      
.NET Core 2.1         .NET Core        1      deprecated      
.NET Core 2.2         .NET Core        1      deprecated      
.NET Core 3.0         .NET Core        2      deprecated      
.NET Core 3.1         .NET Core        3      EOL: 13-Dec-2022
.NET Framework 1.0    .NET Framework   1      deprecated      
.NET Framework 1.1    .NET Framework   1      deprecated      
.NET Framework 2.0    .NET Framework   1      deprecated      
.NET Framework 3.5    .NET Framework   2      EOL: 9-Jan-2029 
.NET Framework 4.0    .NET Framework   1      deprecated      
.NET Framework 4.5    .NET Framework   1      deprecated      
.NET Framework 4.6.1  .NET Framework   1      deprecated      
.NET Framework 4.6.2  .NET Framework   1      supported       
.NET Framework 4.7.1  .NET Framework   1      supported       
.NET Framework 4.7.2  .NET Framework   2      supported       
.NET Standard 2.0     .NET Standard    1      supported       
(Unknown)             (Unknown)        1      unknown         
Visual Basic 6        Visual Basic 6   1      deprecated      
total frameworks                       33                     

To get an inventory of results, use the -i argument:

dotnet census -i

A sample of inventory results:

FileName                                    Path                                                                                     FrameworkCode   FrameworkName         Family          Language  Status
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assembly-CSharp.csproj                      \samples\Sample.Unity2020\Assembly-CSharp.csproj                                         v4.7.1          .NET Framework 4.7.1  .NET Framework  csharp    supported
DotNetCensus.Core.csproj                    \src\DotNetCensus.Core\DotNetCensus.Core.csproj                                          net6.0          .NET 6.0              .NET            csharp    supported
DotNetCensus.csproj                         \src\DotNetCensus\DotNetCensus.csproj                                                    net6.0          .NET 6.0              .NET            csharp    supported
DotNetCensus.Tests.csproj                   \src\DotNetCensus.Tests\DotNetCensus.Tests.csproj                                        net6.0          .NET 6.0              .NET            csharp    supported
project.json                                \samples\Sample.NetCore1.0.ConsoleApp\project.json                                       netcoreapp1.0   .NET Core 1.0         .NET Core       csharp    deprecated
project.json                                \samples\Sample.NetCore1.1.ConsoleApp\project.json                                       netcoreapp1.1   .NET Core 1.1         .NET Core       csharp    deprecated
Sample.MultipleTargets.ConsoleApp.csproj    \samples\Sample.MultipleTargets.ConsoleApp\Sample.MultipleTargets.ConsoleApp.csproj      netcoreapp3.1   .NET Core 3.1         .NET Core       csharp    EOL: 13-Dec-2022
Sample.MultipleTargets.ConsoleApp.csproj    \samples\Sample.MultipleTargets.ConsoleApp\Sample.MultipleTargets.ConsoleApp.csproj      net462          .NET Framework 4.6.2  .NET Framework  csharp    supported
Sample.Net5.ConsoleApp.csproj               \samples\Sample.Net5.ConsoleApp\Sample.Net5.ConsoleApp.csproj                            net5.0          .NET 5.0              .NET            csharp    deprecated
Sample.Net6.ConsoleApp.csproj               \samples\Sample.Net6.ConsoleApp\Sample.Net6.ConsoleApp.csproj                            net6.0          .NET 6.0              .NET            csharp    supported
Sample.Net7.ConsoleApp.csproj               \samples\Sample.Net7.ConsoleApp\Sample.Net7.ConsoleApp.csproj                            net7.0          .NET 7.0              .NET            csharp    EOL: 14-May-2024
Sample.Net7.ConsoleApp.csproj               \samples\Sample.Net7.ConsoleApp\Sample.Net7.ConsoleApp.csproj                            net8.0          .NET 8.0              .NET            csharp    supported
Sample.Net8.ConsoleApp.csproj               \samples\Sample.Net8.ConsoleApp\Sample.Net8.ConsoleApp.csproj                            net9.0          .NET 9.0              .NET            csharp    in preview
Sample.NetCore.ConsoleApp.csproj            \samples\Sample.NetCore3.1.ConsoleApp\Sample.NetCore.ConsoleApp.csproj                   netcoreapp3.1   .NET Core 3.1         .NET Core       csharp    EOL: 13-Dec-2022
Sample.NetCore2.0.ConsoleApp.csproj         \samples\Sample.NetCore2.0.ConsoleApp\Sample.NetCore2.0.ConsoleApp.csproj                netcoreapp2.0   .NET Core 2.0         .NET Core       csharp    deprecated
Sample.NetCore2.1.ConsoleApp.csproj         \samples\Sample.NetCore2.1.ConsoleApp\Sample.NetCore2.1.ConsoleApp.csproj                netcoreapp2.1   .NET Core 2.1         .NET Core       csharp    deprecated
Sample.NetCore3.0.ConsoleApp.csproj         \samples\Sample.NetCore3.0.ConsoleApp\Sample.NetCore3.0.ConsoleApp.csproj                netcoreapp3.0   .NET Core 3.0         .NET Core       csharp    deprecated
Sample.NetFramework.ConsoleApp.csproj       \samples\Sample.NetFramework.ConsoleApp\Sample.NetFramework.ConsoleApp.csproj            v4.7.2          .NET Framework 4.7.2  .NET Framework  csharp    supported
Sample.NetFrameworkVBNet.ConsoleApp.vbproj  \samples\Sample.NetFrameworkVBNet.ConsoleApp\Sample.NetFrameworkVBNet.ConsoleApp.vbproj  netcoreapp3.1   .NET Core 3.1         .NET Core       vb.net    EOL: 13-Dec-2022
Sample.NetStandard.Class.csproj             \samples\Sample.NetStandard.Class\Sample.NetStandard.Class.csproj                        netstandard2.0  .NET Standard 2.0     .NET Standard   csharp    supported
Sample.SSDT.Database.sqlproj                \samples\Sample.SSDT.Database\Sample.SSDT.Database.sqlproj                               v4.7.2          .NET Framework 4.7.2  .NET Framework  csharp    supported
Sample.VB6.WinApp.vbp                       \samples\Sample.VB6.Calculator\Sample.VB6.WinApp.vbp                                     vb6             Visual Basic 6        Visual Basic 6  vb6       deprecated
VBProj.vbproj                               \samples\Sample.NetFramework1.0.App\VBProj.vbproj                                        v1.0            .NET Framework 1.0    .NET Framework  vb.net    deprecated
VBProj.vbproj                               \samples\Sample.NetFramework1.1.App\VBProj.vbproj                                        v1.1            .NET Framework 1.1    .NET Framework  vb.net    deprecated
VBProj.vbproj                               \samples\Sample.NetFramework2.0.App\VBProj.vbproj                                        v2.0            .NET Framework 2.0    .NET Framework  vb.net    deprecated
VBProj.vbproj                               \samples\Sample.NetFrameworkInvalid.App\VBProj.vbproj                                                    (Unknown)             (Unknown)       vb.net    unknown

To download results to a csv file, add the -f argument with a file name:

dotnet census -f c:\temp\results.csv

To download results from a GitHub Repo,

• Add the -o argument with the GitHub owner or organization
• Add the -r argument with the GitHub repo name
• Add the -u argument with the GitHub user
• Add the -p argument with the GitHub PAT Token password
• Add the -b argument with the GitHub branch name (defaults to 'main')

For example, to download results from this repository:

dotnet census -o samsmithnz -r dotnetcensus -u samsmithnz -p <PAT_TOKEN>

To download results from all repos in a GitHub Organization or Owner (personal account), omit the -r argument and use the -d argument. Note that this is an experimental feature, and currently only downloads the first 30 repos...

• Add the -o argument with the GitHub owner or organiation
• Add the -u argument with the GitHub user
• Add the -p argument with the GitHub PAT Token password
• Add the -d argument with the directory to clone the repos to

Note: For large organizations, this will time out. Open to solutions on how to handle this better. For example, to download results from this organization:

dotnet census -o samsmithnz -u samsmithnz -p <PAT_TOKEN> -d <TEMP_DIRECTORY_TO_CLONE_AND_PROCESS>

What's next?

• We are currently experimenting with scanning entire organizations
• Possibly considering adding the ability to scan target other types of Git Repos (e.g. Azure DevOps, BitBucket, etc)

Contributions

If you have a sample that you think should have been picked up, please create an issue or a PR! I'm happy to consider anything, and I know this isn't perfect!