As we know .NET 6 is the latest version of .NET and is generally available with lots of improvement in performance, security, code quality, developer experience and provides long-term support. It is recommended for beginners or newbies who want to start their .NET learning journey using the latest framework and latest Visual Studio IDE. Additionally, sooner or later we need to upgrade our existing solutions to the latest framework.

This article describes how to get started with .NET 6 and what is new in .NET 6 with comparison to .NET5. We will create a console application in .NET6 and .NET 5 and compare the differences between them. Additionally, the article will show how to add more classes in .NET 6 console application and call it from the Program.cs.

Let’s move on.
Create Console App in .NET 6

Step 1
Open Visual Studio 2022 and click Create a new project.

Step 2
Select Console App and click Next.

Step 3
Give the project name and location of the project.

Step 4
Select framework: .NET 6.0 (Long-term support).

This creates the console app which looks like below.

Default Program.cs file is listed below.

// See https://aka.ms/new-console-template for more information
Console.WriteLine("Hello, World!");

The project.csproj file is given below.

Now, let’s compile and run the program. Click on Strat without debugging option or press Ctrl+F5 as illustrated below.

You can see the FirstConsoleApp.exe is created in the folder location of the project under the directory: “E:\SampleProject\FirstConsoleApp\bin\Debug\net6.0” as shown below.

We can run this .exe file which displays the “Hello, World!” message.
Create Project in .NET 5

Let’s create a console application in Visual Studio using .NET 5. Follow all steps as per previous, only choose framework .NET 5 in Step 4.

Below is Program.cs of console app using .NET 5

Comparing .NET6 and .NET 5

We can see here, Program.cs of .NET 5 contains:

    Using system
    Namespace
    class keyword
    Main method

If we compare both the Program.cs file from the above two console apps, these are not available in .NET 6. so, this is the difference between .NET5 and .NET6.
Extending .NET 6 Console Application

Add New Class
Right-click on the project—Go to Add-->Class and click add.

We have added a class with the name: Class1.

Now, will create a public void method named Sum: in this Class1.

public void Sum() {
    int a = 5;
    int b = 6;
    int Sum = a + b;
    Console.WriteLine("Sum : {0}", Sum);
}

Complete code of Class1.cs

namespace FirstConsoleApp { 

    internal class Class1 {
        public void Sum() {
            int a = 5;
            int b = 6;
            int Sum = a + b;
            Console.WriteLine("Sum : {0}", Sum);
        }
    }
}

You might have noticed that this class contains:

  • the namespace
  • internal Class
  • using statements (by default)

Whereas Program.cs doesn’t contain those and you can write logic directly.

Call Sum() Method

In Program.cs class we will call the sum method of the Class1.cs. Furthermore, to call a method from class, here we need to add namespace: using FirstConsoleApp;

using FirstConsoleApp; //need to call method from Class1
Class1 class1 = new Class1();
class1.Sum();

Now, if we run the app then we will get Sum:11 in the console.

Complete code of Program.cs

// See https://aka.ms/new-console-template for more information
using FirstConsoleApp;
Console.WriteLine("Hello, World!");
Class1 class1 = new Class1();
class1.Sum();

When we run the console application, the output looks like below.

Hence, in this article, we created our first Console application in .NET 6 and also created a console app in .NET 5 and compared the differences between them. Additionally, we added the new class in .NET 6 console application and learned to call the method from class in Program.cs file. I hope it helps you to understand the differences between .NET 5 and .NET 6 and get start your journey in the latest .NET framework.

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