Determine assembly version during a post-build event

Question

Let\'s say I wanted to create a static text file which ships with each release. I want the file to be updated with the version number of the release (as specified in A

Answer 1

I've started adding a separate project that builds last and adding a post build event to that project that runs itself. Then I just perform my post build steps programmatically in there.

It makes it a lot easier to do stuff like this. Then you can just inspect the assembly attributes of whatever assembly you want. So far it's working pretty awesome.

Answer 2

I needed exactly this for automatically putting the number in the readme file in the output folder. In the end, as Winston Smith showed, a small external tool is a very good solution for that, and it has the advantage you can format it however you want.

This app outputs the formatted version to the console. I used it in my post-build events to build the readme file by calling it with >> to redirect its output to the readme file.

public class GetVerNum
{
    static void Main(String[] args)
    {
        if (args.Length == 0)
            return;
        try
        {
            FileVersionInfo ver = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(args[0]);
            String version = "v" + ver.FileMajorPart.ToString() + "." + ver.FileMinorPart;
            if (ver.FileBuildPart > 0 || ver.FilePrivatePart > 0)
                version += "." + ver.FileBuildPart;
            if (ver.FilePrivatePart > 0)
                version += "." + ver.FilePrivatePart;
            Console.Write(version);
        }
        catch { }
    }
}

My post-build events:

<nul set /p dummyset=My Application > "$(ProjectDir)\Readme\readme-header.txt"
"$(ProjectDir)\Readme\GetVersionNumber.exe" "$(TargetPath)" >>"$(ProjectDir)\Readme\readme-header.txt"
echo  by Nyerguds>>"$(ProjectDir)\Readme\readme-header.txt"
echo Build date: %date% %time% >> "$(ProjectDir)\Readme\readme-header.txt"
echo.>>"$(ProjectDir)\Readme\readme-header.txt"
copy /b "$(ProjectDir)\Readme\readme-header.txt" + "$(ProjectDir)\Readme\readme-body.txt" "$(TargetDir)\$(ProjectName).txt"

I put all the readme generating related stuff in the \Readme\ folder of my project; the app containing the above code, and the "readme-body.txt" containing the actual readme stuff.

• First line: create the "readme-header.txt" file in the \Readme\ folder of my project, and put the program name inside it. (The <nul set /p dummyset= is a trick I found here: Windows batch: echo without new line). You could also store this string in another text file and just copy that to "readme-header.txt" instead.
• Second line: run the version number retrieving app with the freshly-generated exe file as parameter, and add its output to the header file.
• Third line: add any other stuff (in this case, credits) to the header file. This also adds a line break to the end.

These three together give you a "readme-header.txt" file with "My Application v1.2.3 by Nyerguds", followed by a line break, in it. Then I add the build date and another open line, and copy the header file and the readme body file together to one file in the final build folder. Note that I specifically use binary copy, otherwise it gives odd results. You do have to make sure the body file contains no UTF-8 byte order mark at the start, or you get weird bytes in your final file.

Answer 3

If you have a library project you can try to use WMIC utility (available in windows). Here is an example. Good thing - you don't need to use any external tools.

SET pathFile=$(TargetPath.Replace("\", "\\"))

FOR /F "delims== tokens=2" %%x IN ('WMIC DATAFILE WHERE "name='%pathFile%'" get  Version /format:Textvaluelist')  DO (SET dllVersion=%%x)
echo Found $(ProjectName) version %dllVersion%

Answer 4

I think the best thing you can do is look at MSBuild and MsBuild Extension Pack you should be able to edit you solution file so that a post build event occurs and writes to your test file.

If this is too complicated then you could simply create a small program that inspects all assemblies in you output directory and execute it on post build, you could pass in the output directory using the variable name... for example in the post build event...

AssemblyInspector.exe "$(TargetPath)"

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var assemblyFilename = args.FirstOrDefault();
        if(assemblyFilename != null && File.Exists(assemblyFilename))
        {
            try
            {
                var assembly = Assembly.ReflectionOnlyLoadFrom(assemblyFilename);
                var name = assembly.GetName();

                using(var file = File.AppendText("C:\\AssemblyInfo.txt"))
                {
                    file.WriteLine("{0} - {1}", name.FullName, name.Version);
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                throw;
            }
        }
    }
}

You could also pass in the text file location...