Find unused / unnecessary assemblyBinding redirects

Question

It seems like there is so many binding redirects in our web.config that I either:

look unnecessary
are for assemblies I don't see being referenced anywhere in our solution

This is just a sample of some portion of the binding redirects:

  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.Azure.KeyVault.Core" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" culture="neutral" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-2.0.0.0" newVersion="2.0.0.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.Data.Services.Client" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" culture="neutral" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-5.8.3.0" newVersion="5.8.3.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.Data.OData" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" culture="neutral" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-5.8.3.0" newVersion="5.8.3.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.Data.Edm" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" culture="neutral" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-5.8.3.0" newVersion="5.8.3.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Diagnostics.DiagnosticSource" publicKeyToken="cc7b13ffcd2ddd51" culture="neutral" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-4.0.2.1" newVersion="4.0.2.1" />
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.Owin.Security" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" culture="neutral" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-4.0.0.0" newVersion="4.0.0.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.SqlServer.Types" publicKeyToken="89845dcd8080cc91" culture="neutral" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="10.0.0.0-11.0.0.0" newVersion="14.0.0.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Threading.Tasks.Extensions" publicKeyToken="cc7b13ffcd2ddd51" culture="neutral" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-4.1.1.0" newVersion="4.1.1.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.ValueTuple" publicKeyToken="cc7b13ffcd2ddd51" culture="neutral" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-4.0.2.0" newVersion="4.0.2.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Helpers" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-3.0.0.0" newVersion="3.0.0.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.WebPages" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-3.0.0.0" newVersion="3.0.0.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Mvc" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-5.2.4.0" newVersion="5.2.4.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.ApplicationInsights" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" culture="neutral" />
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-2.5.1.0" newVersion="2.5.1.0" />
  </dependentAssembly>

I think that at some point Visual Studio decided to add lots of them automatically.

Is there a way to verify if any of the binding redirects are needed or automatically verify / remove them?

They are probably dependencies for other assemblies. – Knight King Apr 26 '18 at 09:07 — Knight King, Apr 26 '18 at 09:07

score 54 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 28 '22 at 16:02

54

The solution to this is actually quite simple and elegant.

Remove all your binding redirects in Web.config / app.config;
Go to Package Manager Console;
Enter the command Add-BindingRedirect (you can also specify a target project using -ProjectName "SpecificProject");
All necessary binding redirects are generated;
Run your application and see if it works properly. If not, add any missing binding redirects that the command missed.

edited Jan 28 '22 at 16:02

Zignd

6,896
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answered Jan 31 '19 at 11:23

Jakub Holovsky

6,543
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`Add-BindingRedirect *` for multi-project solutions – hyankov Jun 12 '19 at 20:58
1

When I try this, the command spits out a bunch of stuff but no web.config or app.config files are modified.. Do you have to manually go through the output and add each binding redirect by hand? – Mike Christensen Apr 08 '20 at 01:09
@MikeChristensen no, it did it all by itself, I only had to add one or two that it didn't catch (quite rare cases) – Jakub Holovsky Apr 08 '20 at 07:15
Weird.. Maybe it's broken on the newer builds or something, or my solution has too many projects.. – Mike Christensen Apr 08 '20 at 15:44
@MikeChristensen happened to me a few times until I realized I forgot to select the default project in the Package Manager Console window – MMalke Jan 25 '22 at 15:40
Why would I NOT do it for all projects? – MMalke Jan 25 '22 at 15:56
Doesn't work for me on VS2022 latest as of today. The only way it always works is to use `GenerateBindingRedirectsOutputType` set to true in the project file together with `AutoGenerateBindingRedirects`. Then in the bin folder of the project, I look for the project dll with a `.config` suffix and the redirects will all be there and I have to copy paste them in my web.config. – iBobb Apr 08 '23 at 20:36

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 26 '18 at 10:00

Most of them are added as part of default template. You can safely remove many of them based on yr need in the application, from binding as well as project reference. This way, if accidentally they are being used as dependency somewhere, you will get to know instantly. For example: -

"Microsoft.ApplicationInsights": Auditing application
System.Web.Helpers: Html helpers for MVC
System.ValueTuple: Tuple as a data structure where you can access each property by name
System.Threading.Tasks.Extensions: TPL extension methods
Microsoft.SqlServer.Types: Datatypes registered within SQL server being consumed in app code directly
Microsoft.Owin.Security: Owin as identity management
Microsoft.Data.Edm: Entity framework data modelling
Microsoft.Data.OData: Open Data services

Note that binding redirect is specifically used when your code originally referred/requested an older version and you are providing a newer version. If the version being used is actually the same as the one being provided (primarily for main framework components (rather than updates delivered by NuGet), you can remove bindingRedirect section altogether..

For safety purpose, comment out each section and then run application, if things don't work, you can uncomment the section.

Find unused / unnecessary assemblyBinding redirects

2 Answers2