Specify what the default rollForward value is if not specified

[benmccallum]

Would be great to know what the default rollForward value is if not specified.

Would've thought it would be latestFeature, but it would seem not, so probably just latestPatch, which makes sense for security reasons, but isn't 100% obvious when the dotnet versioning is x.y.znn and z = feature bands. Whereas semantic versioning usually would have that last znn part be the whole patch version.

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Document Details

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• ID: a94c335b-0b65-96cc-1c25-65777fbe4bb5
• Version Independent ID: 6d80613f-42dc-35d7-aeff-3187a36dbbca
• Content: global.json overview - .NET Core CLI
• Content Source: docs/core/tools/global-json.md
• Product: dotnet-core
• Technology: dotnet-cli
• GitHub Login: @tdykstra
• Microsoft Alias: tdykstra

[tdykstra]

The default behavior is described in the Matching rules section. If global.json specifies an SDK version, latestPatch is the default.

[benmccallum]

Sigh. My bad. Didn't realise it was so complicated so didn't look in that part. Must've looked everywhere else. Perhaps this can be made clearer/quicker to find when scanning.

Suggestion 1
Under the section on the rollForward setting, where you'd expect to see the default value described, point to the Matching rules section with something like: "The default value of rollForward is determined as per the Matching rules"

Suggestion 2
Under "Matching rules", the sentence "The matching rules for the latest installed version of the .NET Core Runtime are used when you have multiple runtimes installed side-by-side." is misleading as we don't have multiple instance of runtimes in our docker container, just a global.json with a version specified but these rules still came into effect.

Perhaps that wording could include " or you're using a global.json." on the end?

[tdykstra]

Great ideas, I'll put this issue on our backlog. If you're interested in making a PR for these updates that would be welcome as well.

[eriawan]

@tdykstra

Could I take this issue with @benmccallum suggestion? I think both his suggestions should be the update of this global.json page.

PR for this is submitted: #21290