How best to handle multiple versions of the same dependency?

Question

How best to handle multiple versions of the same dependency?

Matthew Lyons 1

Hello everyone!

I have two dependencies that my program is using that themselves rely on different versions of the same dependency (Newtonsoft.Json.dll).

How do I handle having multiple versions of the same dependency in my program? Not having the correct version means that one of my dependencies or the other now isn't going to work. And hoping to align the two dependencies without considering future development and updates would be a nightmare...

I figured this has to be something that everyone deals with from time to time, but it's the first time I'm running into it. What does everyone else do in this instance? Can you place dependencies in separate folders in the install directory somehow?

I appreciate everyone's help!

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Answer 1

Ken Tucker 5,861

You can use a binding redirect in the config file to tell the program to use the one version of newtonsoft.json.dll.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/configure-apps/redirect-assembly-versions

Matthew Lyons 1 Reputation point

2021-03-16T21:10:49.517+00:00

Thank you for your response. I read that link and it was very informative. I'm a little confused though about how this redirect would work for each dependency.

My program is using two dependencies that are both using different versions of the Newtonsoft.json. So, how would I handle the redirect differently depending on which dependency needed which version of Newtonsoft.json?

Thank you for your help!
Timon Yang-MSFT 9,606 Reputation points

2021-03-17T09:42:53.957+00:00

@Matthew Lyons
Maybe you can refer to the method in the link below to put the two versions of the dll into the same project, and then use reflection to load one of the dlls.
Using 2 different versions of the same dll?
Alberto Poblacion 1,571 Reputation points

2021-03-17T09:54:37.533+00:00

Is there a reason why you need the two versions? In my experience with Newtonsoft.Json, it has excellent backwards compatibility. If you use the binding redirect in the .config so that the dependency that wants the older Newtonsoft.Json version gets handled the newer version instead, such dependency would not even notice the difference and work perfectly well.

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How best to handle multiple versions of the same dependency?

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