AL Runner

Supported versions

Published from docs/manual/versions.md in the source repository.

Business Central versions

AL Runner is checked against Business Central 27.5, 28.5 and 29.0. One binary serves all three. The AL language test corpus runs on real Business Central of each of these versions, and AL Runner is measured against each result. Other majors are not checked. Use one of these three.

How the build of a run is chosen

--bc-version V names the version. It takes a major (28), a major and minor (28.5), or an exact build (four numbers). Without it, AL Runner takes the first rule that applies:

  1. The build of the tests, when they are Microsoft’s own test apps.
  2. The build of the Microsoft packages in your package folders (.alpackages, --dep, --package-cache), when it is of the target major and not below the application and platform versions in app.json.
  3. The newest published build of the target major, at or above those versions.

The target major is the major of application in app.json. Without it, the target is the newest major AL Runner is checked against (29). --verbose prints which rule chose the build.

To run the same tests on several versions, give a list: --bc-version 27.5,28.5,29.0. See “Several versions and countries” in Writing tests.

The runtime of your app

Each app sees the AL methods of the runtime that its own app.json declares. A call of a method that is newer than that runtime gets the AL compiler’s error AL0666, and the run stops with exit code 3, as the compiler would. The same holds for properties, data types, method attributes and object types. Writing tests has the details.

Platforms

al-runner is built for:

  • Linux x64
  • Windows x64
  • macOS arm64

There are no builds for other platforms. The core needs no .NET. Tests that use the DotNet type need the .NET 8 SDK; see What works and what is refused.

Release channels

  • Numbered alpha (3.0.0-alpha.N): released by hand. Use it when you need a version you can name in a bug report.
  • edge: rebuilt every night from the newest commit of main that passed CI.

AL Runner 3 is an alpha. Results can change between builds. Getting started shows how to install each channel.