Dynamic in the immediate window causes 'Microsoft.CSharp.RuntimeBinder.Binder' is not defined or imported error

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Solution 1

You should add reference to Microsoft.CSharp library in the selected project or in the startup project. And your project should reference .NET Framework 4 or higher.

MSDN about immediate window context:

When establishing the context for design time expression evaluation, Visual Studio references the currently selected project in Solution Explorer. If no project is selected in Solution Explorer, Visual Studio attempts to evaluate the function against the startup project. If the function cannot be evaluated in the current context, you will receive an error message.

Solution 2

Two things are important. Check the following:

  1. That your project properties are referencing .NET Framework 4 or higher (if that is not the case, change it: Right click on the project, select the "Properties..." menu item, then select as target framework ".NET Framework 4" (or higher))
  2. That you have added the "Microsoft.CSharp" assembly as reference (note that step 1., which requires to re-load the project, must be done before you can do that)

Afterwards you can use the dynamic type. The reference needs to be added in the selected project or in the startup project in order to become available in the immediate window's scope.


Note: Here I found a nice article about dynamics in C#, how it works and what you can do with it.

Solution 3

  1. Go to project->add reference.
  2. select assemblies from the side bar and Framework
  3. check Microsoft.CSharp

Happy coding!

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Colonel Panic
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Colonel Panic

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Updated on July 05, 2022

Comments

  • Colonel Panic
    Colonel Panic almost 2 years

    If I use dynamic in the immediate window of Visual Studio I get an error

    Predefined type 'Microsoft.CSharp.RuntimeBinder.Binder' is not defined or imported

    How can I fix that?

  • Colonel Panic
    Colonel Panic over 11 years
    How do I do that? I'm using the 'immediate window'
  • HoberMellow
    HoberMellow over 11 years
    You use immediate window in environment of some project. You should add reference to this project.
  • Snixtor
    Snixtor over 11 years
    This is applicable also to debug watch windows. I had a solution with a startup project that did not reference Microsoft.CSharp, but referenced another project that did. Watch windows would throw the "binder not defined or imported" exception. Added a reference to Microsoft.CSharp on the startup project and all was well.
  • Louis Somers
    Louis Somers almost 11 years
    Referencing it in the currently selected project does not seem to work. I am having the same issue with System.Data, which is referenced, but cannot be found by the immediate window. Probably that only works during a debugging session? I'm using it to call a static method without starting a debugging session.
  • Victor Michael Kosgei
    Victor Michael Kosgei about 9 years
    dont forget to click Ok
  • Lazy Coder
    Lazy Coder about 7 years
    Up voted, was hung up on unit test project not having that "Microsoft.CSharp" assembly referenced