.NET Core 3 Assembly Linking

Help us to keep this website almost Ad Free! It takes only 10 seconds of your time:
> Step 1: Go view our video on YouTube: EF Core Bulk Insert
> Step 2: And Like the video. BONUS: You can also share it!

The .NET core 3.0 SDK provides a tool that can reduce the application's size by analyzing IL and trimming unused assemblies.

  • Self-contained apps include everything needed to run your code without requiring .NET to be installed on the host computer.
  • However, the app often only requires a small subset of the framework to function, and other unused libraries could be removed.

IL Linker

The IL Linker is a tool one can use to ship the minimal possible IL code and metadata that a set of programs might require to run instead to the full libraries.

  • .NET Core now includes a setting that will use the IL linker tool to scan the IL of your app.
  • This tool detects what code is required and then trims unused libraries.
  • This tool can significantly reduce the deployment size of some apps.

To enable this tool, add the <PublishTrimmed> setting in your project and publish a self-contained app.

<PropertyGroup>
  <PublishTrimmed>true</PublishTrimmed>
</PropertyGroup>

Or you can run the following from the command line as shown below.

dotnet publish -r <rid> -c Release

As an example, the basic "hello world" new console project template that is included, when published, hits about 70 MB in size. By using <PublishTrimmed>, that size is reduced to about 30 MB.

  • It is important to consider that applications or frameworks (including ASP.NET Core and WPF) that use reflection or related dynamic features will often break when trimmed.
  • This breakage occurs because the linker doesn't know about this dynamic behavior and can't determine which framework types are required for reflection.
  • The IL Linker tool can be configured to be aware of this scenario.

Make sure to test your application after trimming.



Got any .NET Core 3 Question?