Difference in the properties for the same dll in c#.net and vb.net

Question

I am adding a dll for my project. My project is in vb.net and dll is written in c#.net. When I add this to a vb.net project the properties that are available are different (less in number) to the properties that are available if the same dll is added to ac# project.

Object Browser view when added to a VB.Net Project

Object Browser view when added to ac# project

If you see in c# view you can access properties like "hits" and "facets" which are not accessible in vb.net.

Can anyone please help me understand this issue.

Answer 1

There are differences between VB.NET and C#. Make sure you compile your C# dll with the assembly attribute CLSCompliant set to true so your compiler can determine if all your publics are compatible to the other .NET languages.

Answer 2

To clarify my situation I am using a dll downloaded from github. When I downloaded the source code from github I found out that it is not CLSComplaint. When I changed the property name and added DataMember attribute (for jsonserilzation) all the properties are available in vb.net project as well, but the problem I will be facing is merging of the code changes to any updates in the particular class library in original version to the CLSComplaint one which I don't want to commit to GitHub until I speak with author.

As a work around I added GetHitCount(CLSComplaint property name)

public int GetHitCount
{
    get { return hits.total;}
}

this exposes the "hits" property which is not available when the dll is added to vb.net project.

Answer 3

It's likely that "hits" and "facets" in the C# project have members in the class that have the same name, but different case. This is a very common issue for VB projects referencing C# dlls, and it also will result in the C# dll not being CLS Compliant. VB is case-insensitive, so it cannot determine which "hits" is being needed if there also is a "Hits" member - as a result VB will not display either member.

You can still call "hits" and "facets", but you will need to use "InvokeMember" to do this (using reflection).