Why is only a parameter-less Main method considered as a "valid startup object" for a C# project?

Question

I downloaded a zip of source files containing a C# project with multiple entry points / Main methods. Since I wanted to tinker around, I created another one like this in a new type/class

class MyExperiments
   {
      static void Main(String[] args)
      {
         // do something
      }
   }

then I switched to project properties. Simply switch the startup object to MyExperiments eh? To my surprise, the dropdown didn't have it. I rebuilt, made the method public, tried a whole lot of stuff.. but to no avail. Finally I edited the .csproj manually in notepad and then it worked. More tinkering around, I removed the parameters to make it

static void Main()

and now VS Project properties could 'see' the startup object. So now I could select it using the dropdown. I then added the String[] back and everything still worked.

Seems a bit weird to me (because the most common form is a Main method with parameters for command line args from the C/C++ times). MSDN says the dropdown will contain valid startup objects if they exist in your project.

Answer 1

Good thing you copy-pasted it, it is the capital 'S' in Main(String[] args). Apparently VS uses some text matching, and it's case sensitive. As it probably should be.

Answer 2

lol - it looks like a bug in the IDE:

static void Main(String[] args) {}

doesn't show, but

static void Main(string[] args) {}

does!

Answer 3

Update: Response to the Connect Feedback / bug,

Thanks for the feedback! It looks the issue here is that the "String" parameter in the Main method needs to be a fully lowercase "string" (and it seems to have been pointed out on your stackoverflow post). I see a suggestion here to update the project property page to be slightly smarter about picking up the startup object, but given that there's a reasonable workaround, we're going to invest our resources in stabilizing and improving performance of VS2010. I'm going to go ahead and resolve the bug as a "Wont Fix" but please feel free to re-activate the bug if you have any further questions/comments.

Thanks, DJ Park C# IDE, Program Manager

So seems to be something you'd have to keep at the back of your mind for now - Gishu