Using Extension Methods in .Net 2.0 from VB.Net

So despite what ScottGu originally said, Extension Methods don't 'just work' for VS 2008 projects targeting .Net 2.0.

There's no end of blog posts describing the workaround - add your own ExtensionAttribute class to get it working - but all the samples are in C# (which is interesting in of itself). So here's the VB.Net version:

Namespace System.Runtime.CompilerServices
    <AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Method Or AttributeTargets.Assembly Or AttributeTargets.Class)> _
    Public Class ExtensionAttribute
        Inherits Attribute
    End Class
End Namespace

...and why am I bothering to blog about this rather trivial conversion? Because of the key gotcha: make sure you put this in a project with no root namespace set:



That had me banging my head on the table for too long.

As did the next one: extension methods only show up under the 'All' tab in IntelliSense - obviously too advanced for mere Morts. I gotta remember to turn that off: using VB is bad enough without the IDE patronising you as well.

Interestingly, if you get the AttributeUsage declaration wrong on the attribute, you get this error:

"The custom-designed version of System.Runtime.CompilerServices.ExtensionAttribute ... is not valid"

Fascinating. So this hackery works by design, it's just not really supported as such.

More reading: MSDN documentation on Extension Methods in VB