The releases.json and releases.csv files began life as helper tools for some of our internal release work, some experimentation and to possibly be useful to the community. It has been great to learn the files are indeed in use and many folks depend on them as a trigger for a number of activities.
Between the usages which we have become aware and in considering further activities that could be enabled to reason about things such as checking .NET Core version availability and support status, it became clear the current format is inadequate.
An updated format has been designed and tested which will replace the current files. The timeline below describes the path to obsoleting the current files.
| Date | Action |
|---|---|
| Oct 2018 | Notify the community of the coming change |
| Oct 2018 | Release the new json format into dotnet/core |
| Oct 2018 - Feb 2019 | Maintain the old json and csv files |
| Feb 2019 | Reminder announcement that old format file is coming soon |
| Mar 2019 | Old json and csv files are obsoleted and removed from dotnet/core |
If you are currently utilizing the old version json or csv, you will need to update the relevant code to work with the new format. If you are just getting started with consuming this data, use the new version.
Below are fragments of the files from our most recent .NET Core release.
This file consists of a top level array with data on the latest release versions and a property for locating the more detailed channel-specific releases.json. This file is found in dotnet/core/release-notes
{
"releases-index": [
{
"channel-version": "2.1",
"latest-release": "2.1.5",
"latest-release-date":"2018-10-02",
"product": ".NET Core",
"support-phase": "lts",
"eol-date": "",
"releases.json": "https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/master/release-notes/2.1/releases.json",
},
...
}
This file provides detailed data for each release. A copy of this file will be found in each versioned directories under dotnet/core/release-notes. For example dotnet/core/release-notes/2.1
{
"channel-version": "2.1",
"latest-release": "2.1.5",
"latest-release-date":"2018-10-12",
"support-phase": "lts",
"eol-date": "",
"lifecycle-policy": "https://www.microsoft.com/net/support/policy",
"releases":
[
{
"release-date": "2018-10-02",
"release-version": "2.1.5",
"security": false,
"release-notes": "https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/master/release-notes/2.1/2.1.5/2.1.5.md",
"runtime":
{
"version": "2.1.5",
"version-display": "2.1.5",
"vs-version": "15.8.6",
"files":
[
{
"name": "dotnet-runtime-linux-arm.tar.gz",
"url": "https://download.visualstudio.microsoft.com/download/pr/4d555219-1f04-47c6-90e5-8b3ff8989b9c/0798763e6e4b98a62846116f997d046e/dotnet-runtime-2.1.5-linux-arm.tar.gz",
"hash": "89a77a07065ea24e7198c77a233b9ce5c6cf51b1deb2ef55c88f0adbb2ecd9db1ba4e7d55eec2ef7139c47f91346fed360161a5bb6e3a7ccfc4559bcde286364"
},
...
]
}
"sdk":
{
"version": "2.1.403",
"version-display": "2.1.403",
"vs-version": "15.8.6",
"csharp-language": "7.3",
"fsharp-language": "4.5",
"files":
[...]
}
}
]
}