Azure Pipeline - Increment build number and display in web app

Question

I have the following simple build pipeline working in Azure DevOps with releases deployed to a staging slot.

I would like to have a build revision/version string and that is auto-incremented. I then want to display this in my web app so I can tell which version of the software is in production.

Currently I display the version string from the .csproj file. Something like this in a

<Version>1.1.4.7</Version>

And then displayed on a web page using the following code:

Version: @typeof(Startup).Assembly.GetName().Version.ToString()

If I can update the existing version string that would be great but I'm open to changing to whatever's easiest to integrate in the CI process.

Answer 1

Versioning has been simplified in the .Net Core world.

Edit your csproj and modify it as follows:

<PropertyGroup>
  <Version Condition=" '$(BUILD_BUILDNUMBER)' == '' ">1.0.0.0</Version>
  <Version Condition=" '$(BUILD_BUILDNUMBER)' != '' ">$(BUILD_BUILDNUMBER)</Version>
</PropertyGroup>

If your file doesn’t have a version node, add the above.

The above setup will mean debugging locally will give you a version of 1.0.0.0, and in the event, you build in a non-Azure DevOps environment you will also end up with a 1.0.0.0 version. $(BUILD_BUILDNUMBER) is an environment variable set by Team Build and which will be updated at build time by VSTS or TFS.

The .Net version needs to be in the format [major].[minor].[build].[revision] with each segment being a number between 0 and 65000. You can configure the build number format in the Options tab, see here more info about the formatting. See here for helpful steps on configuring the build.