Confusing use of "default" for langversion

[elezar42]

This document and this one are both extremely confusing, because they use the term "default" to mean 2 different things for the langversion. There's the default that is used if no langversion is specified, and then there's a specific value named default that is a synonym for latestmajor. At least, I think that's how it's supposed to work. I'm making an educated guess here because it's not clearly documented. I understand that removing the value of default may not be an option because it would be a breaking change, but the document needs to be very clear about the difference between this value and the actual defaults that are used when no value is specified.

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Document Details

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• ID: 5694e62b-c756-1f62-4014-2ceafa54c011
• Version Independent ID: 3f01c378-22e4-197c-a862-ab4a924506c7
• Content: C# language versioning - C# Guide
• Content Source: docs/csharp/language-reference/configure-language-version.md
• Product: dotnet-csharp
• Technology: csharp-language-reference
• GitHub Login: @BillWagner
• Microsoft Alias: wiwagn

[BillWagner]

Your analysis is correct @elezar42

I've added this to our backlog to address when we next update this article.

[luizhlelis]

Hello everyone!
Maybe I am mistaken, but I understood from the text that if no override is made, the compiler will use the latest language version compatible with your target framework. So, the default that is used if no langversion is specified and the specific value named default that is a synonym for latestmajor are exactly the same thing.

What are you expecting as a solution to this issue?

[elezar42]

@luizhlelis From my testing, using the specific value of default (or latestmajor) uses the latest version of the language supported by the compiler, without taking into account the target framework. So building a project that targets .NET 6 from the current version of VS2022 will use C# 10 if no LangVersion is specified, but will use C# 11 if LangVersion is set to default o latestmajor.