Visual Basic Breaking Changes in Visual Studio 2012

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The following table lists changes that might prevent an application that was created in Visual Basic 2010 from compiling in Visual Basic in Visual Studio 2012 and changes might change the run-time behavior of an application.

Category

Issue

Description

Type inference

In a Return statement where the operand is an array literal, the runtime array type is determined from the function signature instead of being inferred from the array literal.

This change lets you return an array literal in places where you couldn’t before, as the following example shows:

Function GetArrayLiteral(ByVal number As Integer) As Integer()
    If number < 0 Then
        ' In Visual Studio 2010, this array literal is
        ' is inferred to be an array of objects, which
        ' cannot be converted to an array of integers. 
        ' In the current version, this array literal is
        ' inferred to be an array of integers, which is
        ' the return type of the function. 
        Return {}
    Else
        Return {number}
    End If
End Function

This change might result in the runtime type of an array literal being wider than what it was in Visual Basic 2010, as the following example shows:

Private Sub ArrayLiterals()
    Dim theArray = GetArray()
    Console.WriteLine(theArray.GetType().FullName) 
End Sub

Private Function GetArray() As Object()
    Return {"chromatic", "infinitesimal"}
End Function

' Output in the current version:
'   System.Object[]
' Output in Visual Studio 2010:
'   System.String[]

Lambda expressions

In a For Each expression, you can now use the control variable in a lambda expression.

The use of a For Each iteration variable in a lambda expression no longer causes a compile-time warning and no longer has unexpected results, as the following example illustrates:

Dim methods As New List(Of Action)
For Each word In {"hello", "world"}
    methods.Add(Sub() Console.Write(word & " "))
Next
methods(0)() 
methods(1)() 

' Output in the current version: 
'   hello world
' Output in Visual Studio 2010: 
'   world world

LINQ expressions

In a For Each expression, you can now use the control variable in a LINQ expression.

The use of a For Each iteration variable in a LINQ expression no longer causes a compile-time warning and no longer has unexpected results, as the following example illustrates:

Dim lines As New List(Of IEnumerable(Of String)) 

For Each number In {1, 2, 3}
    Dim line = From letter In {"a", "b", "c"}
            Select number.ToString & letter

    lines.Add(line) 
Next

For Each line In lines
    For Each entry In line
        Console.Write(entry & " ")
    Next
    Console.WriteLine()
Next

' Output in the current version: 
'  1a 1b 1c
'  2a 2b 2c
'  3a 3b 3c

' Output in Visual Studio 2010: 
'  3a 3b 3c
'  3a 3b 3c
'  3a 3b 3c

Overload resolution

If two overloads with generic type parameters match a caller equally well but one overload is more specific, the more specific overload is used.

This condition caused an overload resolution compile-time error in Visual Studio 2010. In the following example, the Process(theList) line causes a compile-time error in Visual Studio 2010. In the current version, the line matches the more specific overload of the Process method.

Private Sub Test()
    Dim theList As New List(Of Integer)
    Process(theList)
    Dim theQueue As New Queue(Of Integer)
    Process(theQueue)
End Sub
Private Sub Process(Of T)(ByVal theList As List(Of T))
    Debug.WriteLine("first overload")
End Sub
Private Sub Process(Of T)(ByVal x As T)
    Debug.WriteLine("second overload")
End Sub
' Output:
'   first overload
'   second overload

See Also

Reference

For Each...Next Statement (Visual Basic)

Concepts

Lambda Expressions (Visual Basic)

What's New for Visual Basic in Visual Studio 2012

Other Resources

Arrays in Visual Basic

LINQ in Visual Basic

Getting Started with Visual Basic

When is a non-breaking language fix breaking?