How to read property value from external file?

Question

I have AssemblyInfo.cs file automatically generated during build. Here\'s part of .csproj file:

    2
    &l         


        

Answer 1

It is possible to do this using the ability of PropertyFunctions to call certain .NET functions directly. Essentially, you can call File.ReadAllText() when setting a property value.

    $([System.IO.File]::ReadAllText("Version.txt"))


    

The Version.txt file would just contain the first three version numbers, i.e. "1.2.3" or whatever.

I'm not sure exactly when this was added to MSBuild, but it was probably after this question was asked and answered.