Get .NET Core DLL version on Linux

Question

I have a .NET Core app which sets metadata properties during build, using standard options in the .csproj:

<Project>

  <PropertyGroup>

    <Product>MyCoolProduct</Product> 
    <Version>0.1.1</Version>

  </PropertyGroup>

  <snip />

</Project>

On Windows, this is easy enough to retrieve from the compiled .dll either in Explorer, or via a PowerShell script. How can I do something similar on Linux? Ideally, I'd like to be able run a simple command like dotnet inspect my.dll and get a summary of metadata for that assembly, but what's the next best thing?

Answer 1

I use exiftool:

$ exiftool /usr/lib64/dotnet/sdk/2.0.3/Microsoft/Microsoft.NET.Build.Extensions/tools/netcoreapp1.0/System.Threading.dll | grep -i version
ExifTool Version Number         : 10.55
Linker Version                  : 48.0
OS Version                      : 4.0
Image Version                   : 0.0
Subsystem Version               : 4.0
File Version Number             : 4.6.24705.1
Product Version Number          : 0.0.0.0
File Version                    : 4.6.24705.01
Product Version                 : 4.6.24705.01. Commit Hash: 4d1af962ca0fede10beb01d197367c2f90e92c97
Assembly Version                : 4.0.12.0

Originally discovered from here.

Watch out, though. It doesn't work on crossgened stuff:

$ exiftool /usr/lib64/dotnet/sdk/2.0.3/Roslyn/Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.dll
ExifTool Version Number         : 10.55
File Name                       : Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.dll
Directory                       : /usr/lib64/dotnet/sdk/2.0.3/Roslyn
File Size                       : 4.6 MB
File Modification Date/Time     : 2018:01:24 13:12:48-05:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2018:02:01 12:37:59-05:00
File Inode Change Date/Time     : 2018:01:26 09:52:23-05:00
File Permissions                : rw-r--r--
Error                           : File format error