Pre-build MSBuild task to update AssemblyInfo not in sync with built exe

Question

I am using a pre-build task in Visual Studio 2008 that invokes msbuild:

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\MSBuild.exe $(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\version.targets /p:Configuration=$(ConfigurationName) 

Inside version.targets, I am updating the AssemblyInfo.cs file to replace version information:

   <FileUpdate         Encoding="ASCII"         Files="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs"         Regex="AssemblyInformationalVersion\(&quot;.*&quot;\)\]"          ReplacementText="AssemblyInformationalVersion(&quot;Product $(ConfigurationString) ($(buildDate))&quot;)]"     /> 

When I build the project through Visual Studio 2008, it builds without any problems.

But when I look at the resulting exe's version information, it contains the previous time stamp even though the AssemblyInfo.cs has been changed with the "correct" one.

It seems that the pre-build's changes aren't seen by the main compilation task and it's always one behind.

Any ideas of what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

I don't think you are doing anything wrong - it's a bug.

I have reported it here - check if you can reproduce it and add a validation, maybe we can get it fixed by MS.

EDIT: I tried the suggestion by "Si" to update the file in the "BeforeBuild" event - however I still get the same wrong result with Visual Studio 2008/SP1.

UPDATE/WORKAROUND: MS has responded to the bug report. As a workaround you can add

<UseHostCompilerIfAvailable>FALSE</UseHostCompilerIfAvailable> 

to your csproj file.

Answer 2

+1 for the <UseHostCompilerIfAvailable>FALSE</UseHostCompilerIfAvailable> trick, although neither the accepted solution nor the linked article specified that the line should be added to the first <PropertyGroup> element in the .csproj file.

It is also a problem with Visual Studio only, as invoking msbuild from the command-line on the same .csproj file (without the trick) will see the generated code files compiled right away (and not the previous versions).

Also, I would like to recommend that this topic be tagged with the following, as I had to dig a lot to find it:

1. VisualStudio
2. compiler
3. BeforeBuild
4. generated
5. .NET
6. c#