Aligning assembly version numbers with TFS Buildnumber

Question

I am wondering if there is a way to synchronize the build numbers (20080213.1) without using the BuildNumberOverrideTarget where I would have to generate my own build number? I basically want to use the default/built-in tfs buildnumber generator but want to access it to align my assembly versions with it. Can this be done and is it a sensible way to do it this way?

Answer 1

What you are asking for is very sensible and there are a number of ways to achieve this.

Personally, when I do this I don't like to check the files in to version control that have the build server generated number in them - it just introduces too many head-aches when merging code across branches but also I like a known version number to be used when a developer does a workstation build vs a proper build server derived assembly to make it really easy to tell them apart.

For more information on how I like to do it, take a look at the TFS Build Recipies wiki:

• TFS Build: Assembly Versioning

or my blog post on the topic

• Martin Woodward: Aligning Build Numbers with Assembly Versions

Hope that helps,

Martin.