# Description
Adopt
[`System.TimeProvider`](https://learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/api/system.timeprovider)
across the stack so that every place that creates timers, runs duration
math, or schedules periodic work is mockable, deterministic in tests,
and immune to wall-clock changes.
The migration touches Core, Core.Types, Server, Client, PubSub,
Configuration, Gds (server + client), Lds, and the Quickstarts/Console
reference apps. Per-component changes follow the same pattern:
1. Add a `private readonly TimeProvider m_timeProvider;` field.
2. Accept a nullable `TimeProvider? timeProvider = null` as the **last**
constructor parameter (new overload; legacy constructor stays for binary
compatibility and delegates with `timeProvider: null`).
3. Initialise the field with `m_timeProvider = timeProvider ??=
TimeProvider.System;`.
4. Replace `new Timer(...)`, `Stopwatch`, `HiResClock.*`,
`DateTime.UtcNow`-based duration math, and `Task.Delay(delay, ct)` in
timing loops with the matching `m_timeProvider` API (`CreateTimer`,
`GetTimestamp` / `GetElapsedTime`, `GetUtcNow().UtcDateTime`,
`Task.Delay(delay, m_timeProvider, ct)`).
5. Wire the provider through DI: `AddOpcUaServerBuilder` /
`AddOpcUaClientBuilder` register `TimeProvider.System` via
`TryAddSingleton<TimeProvider>()` so tests can swap in
`Microsoft.Extensions.Time.Testing.FakeTimeProvider`.
`HiResClock` itself is kept (so the
`ApplicationConfiguration.DisableHiResClock` schema flag still
round-trips), but **every public member** is now `[Obsolete]` with a
single shared message pointing to the new migration-guide section. The
few internal call sites that still need to set/read `HiResClock` are
wrapped with `#pragma warning disable CS0618`.
### Highlights per component
- **Core / Stack** — `Opc.Ua.Core`, `Opc.Ua.Core.Types`, channel
pipeline (`UaSCBinaryClientChannel`, `ChannelToken`,
`UaSCBinaryChannel`), `ApplicationConfiguration`, certificate
validators, `JwksIssuerKeyResolver`, `TimeProviderExtensions` polyfills
(`GetTimestampMilliseconds`, `GetTickCount`,
`CancellationTokenSource(timeout, timeProvider)`, `Task.Delay(delay,
provider, ct)` polyfill for older TFMs).
- **Server** — session lockout, subscription pipeline
(publish/sample/keep-alive/lifetime), `MonitoredItemQueue`, alarm
sampling rate, `IntervalRunner`, server diagnostics, configuration state
machines, hosted services.
- **Client** — `Session`, managed/V2 subscription engines, reconnect
handlers, channel keep-alive, periodic publishing, complex-type
discovery polling.
- **PubSub** — `IntervalRunner` pipeline, message-receive timers,
MQTT/UDP keep-alive, publishers/readers.
- **Gds / Lds** — `LdsServer`, `LinqApplicationsDatabase` expiry
housekeeping, GDS clients (push, pull), `DirectoryCertificateStore`,
`ConnectionStateMachine`, classic subscription engine.
- **Quickstarts / Console samples** — `SampleNodeManager`,
`ReferenceNodeManager`, `AlarmNodeManager`, `BoilerState`,
`MemoryBufferState`, `PublishedValuesWrites`. Samples resolve via
`(Server as ITimeProviderProvider)?.TimeProvider ?? TimeProvider.System`
so existing ctor signatures stay binary-compatible.
- **Tests** — `Opc.Ua.PubSub.Tests` adds `IntervalRunnerTests`; existing
`SubscriptionTests`, `UaPublisherTests`, and `TestDataSystem` move off
`HiResClock`. Added `Microsoft.Extensions.TimeProvider.Testing` package
for `FakeTimeProvider` (project-load warning surfaces on net48/net472
only — runtime is .NET 8+).
### Migration guide
New section [**Time and Timer abstraction
(`TimeProvider`)**](Docs/MigrationGuide.md#time-and-timer-abstraction-timeprovider)
documents:
- The canonical replacement table (`HiResClock.UtcNow` →
`timeProvider.GetUtcNow().UtcDateTime`, `HiResClock.TickCount64` →
`timeProvider.GetTimestamp()`, `new Timer` → `timeProvider.CreateTimer`,
`Task.Delay(delay, ct)` → `Task.Delay(delay, timeProvider, ct)`, …).
- The `TimeProvider? timeProvider = null` + `??=` constructor pattern.
- DI wiring and how to swap in `FakeTimeProvider` in tests.
- Before/after snippets for `HiResClock.TickCount64`,
`HiResClock.UtcNow`, and `new Timer(...)`.
## Related Issues
- Fixes#2458
## Checklist
- [x] I have signed the
[CLA](https://opcfoundation.org/license/cla/ContributorLicenseAgreementv1.0.pdf)
and read the
[CONTRIBUTING](https://github.com/OPCFoundation/UA-.NETStandard/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md)
doc.
- [x] I have added tests that prove my fix is effective or that my
feature works and increased code coverage.
- [x] I have added all necessary documentation.
- [x] I have verified that my changes do not introduce (new) build or
analyzer warnings.
- [ ] I ran **all** tests locally using the **UA.slnx** solution against
at least .net **framework** and .net **10**, and all passed.
- [ ] I fixed **all** failing and flaky tests in the CI pipelines and
**all** CodeQL warnings.
- [ ] I have addressed **all** PR feedback received.
Drive the solution to zero warnings / zero errors with analyzers on,
promote the consistently-fixed rules to error, and lock in coverage
on the only line of new logic.
* New certificate and secrete abstraction with certificate infrastructure and certificate/secret stores.
* leak testing for certificate resources to validate new ref counting in every test assembly
* Migration guide updated and documentation added for all
* Remove IDisposable from Nodestate and UserIdentity.
* UserCertificateTokenHandler now just points into certificate registry/stores, no dispose required
* Fix CA2000 warnings and cleanup of other diagnostics, increase warning levels in .editorconfig
* make most ptojects aot compatible
* Remove newtonsoft
* Migrate all projects from Mono.Options to System.CommandLine 2.0.5
* Fix array clone
* Replace serializers for storage using new attribute driven type geberator
* Add new AOT integration tests covering all functional areas
* Documentation updates
Generate stack and application code using source generators
Change built in types to readonly structs
Update localized text implementation to use JSON text serializer
Status code with symbolic names
Immutable node ids
No boxing for all built in types <= 8 bytes in Variant.
Split user identity token and token handling via token handler
Add migration guide for breaking changes
This pull request modernizes the OPC UA .NET codebase and tests, removes .NET Standard 2.0 support from certificate/security code, and updates test code to use C# 12 and .NET 8+ features for clarity and maintainability.
- Certificate and BouncyCastle interop files (e.g., CertificateBuilder.cs, X509Extensions.cs, X509SignatureFactory.cs) are refactored to drop NETSTANDARD2_0 support and use modern .NET APIs and conditional compilation.
- Test code across the codebase is updated to use default, strongly-typed Parse methods, collection expressions, and improved async/await patterns.
- Exception handling and assertions in tests are modernized, and test method naming is made consistent with Async suffixes.
- The project and build files are updated to clarify Roslynator analyzer usage and remove obsolete netstandard tags.
- General code and test cleanup includes improved null safety, type safety, and removal of deprecated or unused code.
This change adds a **new Opc.Ua.Types** nuget that contains core types that do not rely on generated code. Why the name? Because almost all code that was in the Types subfolder is part of it, and because we do not want to change the name of the Opc.Ua.Core nuget/assembly because code relies on it. Any other name like base or bootstrap felt out of place due to the current structure already defining the name "types". Key design is to depend on only a small set of libraries with limited transitive dependencies, that includes hashcode, logging.abstraction, and for non standard20 builds System.Text.Json (needed for localizedText mul parsing). Also, key is to support .netstd 2.0 to support source generators and to allow removal of EEC_SUPPORT defines by removing std2.0 from core and all libraries.
The changes are mostly restructuring, and thus small but contain some key changes:
- **Status code** struct now comes with a Symbol field, which is used to carry symbols in case the code is not generated. Currently (until generated) the status code struct must be manually created with a symbol or the ToSymbolicId extension must be called in the core project. Future will generate Status code constants just like NodeId that contain the symbol which also removes the reflection-based lookup. Several tests needed to be adjusted as they checked the status code symbol strings instead of the code.
- **Core identifiers** are copied as they were needed for code to compile, that includes attributes, a subset of status codes and node identifiers. These will never change so no need to generate them.
- The types folder now contains **encoders**, except for json which is still in core. Once the json encoder is ported to system.text.json it will also be included and Newtonsoft.Json dropped as dependency (-> #3329).
- Since types relies on **IOperationContext** and **ISystemContext**, and these export IUserIdentity which relies on crypto, these were split and extended in core with ISessionOperationContext and ISessionSystemContext, which mean changes to ServerSystemContext and introduction of SessionOperationContext and SessionSystemContext classes that extend OperationContext and SystemContext. Some runtime checks in the server are therefore needed to get at the session and auth info, however, those are anyway optional fields and are not on the critical paths, and thus a type check is in order (and was done in the past already, but against OperationContext class).
- **Manifest resources** are now split between Core (nodeset zip, some generated resoures) and Types (built in bsd/xsds). This needs to be revisited later if the bsd/xsd need to be regenerated during type generation. Note that the embedded resource names changed as a result. Since these are only used internally and do not constitute public API this feels reasonable vs duplication of resources in 2 assemblies.
- Reflection however now needs to load not just the built in **encodeables** from Opc.Ua.Types assembly, but also the generated encodeables from Opc.Ua.Core assembly. For this a new helper Utils method was added to get the Core assembly when linked against Opc.Ua.Core otherwise null.
- Whatever utils methods needed to be split out into the new Opc.Ua.Types assembly, they are now in **CoreUtils** static class in Opc.Ua.Types, and Utils.xxxx forwards to them to ensure minimal changes. Later we would want to obsolete them in favor of CoreUtils, although it might make sense to split them again into domain specific utilities, such as networking, files, etc
- Reduce memory allocations in JSON encoder by using stackalloc/ArrayPool
- Fix some new warnings in .NET9 code analyzers
- Fix fuzzing error in JsonDecoder
- do not use .NET9 libraries with .NET8 LTS builds #2931, #2940
- Bump langversion to 9 (max VS2019)
- Use official ASP.Net 2.3. libraries for .NET Framework (rel. Jan 15th)
Three new DataTypes plus Variables containing them were added to the Reference Server:
- VectorUnion (as Scalar and Array): The VectorUnion contains three fields (X, Y, Z) and a SwitchField. When it is used as value, it is generated randomly (SwitchField set to None or one of the Fields)
- VectorWithOptionalFields (as Scalar and Array): The VectorWithOptionalFields contains again three fields (X, Y, Z), but they are all optional. When it is used as a value, it is generated with 0 to all fields activated.
- MultipleVectors (as Scalar and Array): The MultipleVectors type contains 6 Components. A regular Vector, a VectorUnion (from before), a VectorWithOptionalFields (also from before) and the same as Arrays.
- The StructureValue DataType value has a Method and event as childs, but it may only have variables / properties.
- Uses latest generated code from Modelcompiler which fixes issues with child variables read/write/monitoring.
- Improve formatting and log strings for new alarm node managers.
- Remove the TestData Alarms as they cause issues in the CTT tests
- Add a -ctt option to start the alarms endless for testing, stop alarms in other node managers.
- Unify the way the node managers are created in the quickstarts sample.
- Bring back 'dummy' appveyor config to disable the builds.
- fix codecov build
- add a few more unrelated tests
- Doc, docs, docs updates for new 368 support
- fix a missing null pointer check when ConditionRefresh is run
- Ref server: move NodeManager factory API to StandardServer, decoupling the NodeManager implementation from Ref server
- Ref server: add shadow mode flag, to allow to map a docker configuration in a mapped folder.
- Ref server: sample batch files how to run Github CR and local docker images
- Improve some misleading 'delete application certificate' log messages.
- support for Microsoft.Extensions.Logger.ILogger in Opc.Ua.Core as the new logging interface
- backward compatible with config and TraceEvents
- new API Utils.SetLogger allows to set ILogger
- updated Console samples to demonstrate ILogger support with Serilog
- support for EventSource logging
- see Docs/Logging.md for more info
- HasTypeDefinition and TypeDefinitionId should only exist for Object/Variable in .uanodes
- fix binary export for .uanodes
- #1574 missed the binary output case, only fixed xml export
- fixes#1532
- fixes https://github.com/OPCFoundation/UA-ModelCompiler/issues/94
- fix the default and sample models in this repo
note --> ModelCompiler needs to use the updated core lib to produce the same output
Marc Schier