Set AssemblyInfo Version numbers with MSI setup version

Question

I am using a setup project to publish my projects. I want the version of each project to be the same as the setup version.

I want to change my setup version property in Visual Studio and after building, for all project versions to be updated from this property, is this possible?

Answer 1

Projects have Assembly & File version numbers: (not setup versions I edited your question accordingly)

Answer 1:

If you want to make the Setup projects version number set the Assembly & File version numbers you need to do it with a script/exe that gets triggered by the build.

This article on How To Update Assembly Version Number Automatically shows half the solution...

From the research I did it is not possible to use the SetupVersion in a PreBuildEvent. There isn't a $SetupVersion command for it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/42x5kfw4(v=vs.80).aspx

Having to change the PreBuildEvent each build as shown in this comment in the Code Project article using the -set: command is not ideal.

The solution we need is a PreBuildEvent to call the AssemblyInfoUtil.exe and have it read the "ProductVersion" from the vdproj project file. And then update the Assembly version number(s).

I have modified the code from the article to show you how to read the product version from the Setup.vdproj and this is how it can be called from a PreBuildEvent:

AssemblyInfoUtil.exe -setup:"C:\Program Files\MyProject1\Setup1\Setup1.vdproj" -ass:"C:\Program Files\MyProject1\AssemblyInfo.cs"

This is the modified code:

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Text;

namespace AssemblyInfoUtil
{
    class AssemblyInfoUtil
    {
    private static int incParamNum = 0;    
    private static string fileName = "";  
    private static string setupfileName = "";       
    private static string versionStr = null;    
    private static bool isVB = false;
    [STAThread]
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < args.Length; i++) {
            if (args[i].StartsWith("-setup:")) {
           string s = args[i].Substring("-setup:".Length);
           setupfileName = int.Parse(s);
            }
            else if (args[i].StartsWith("-ass:")) {
           fileName = args[i].Substring("-ass:".Length);
            }
        }

        //Jeremy Thompson showing how to detect "ProductVersion" = "8:1.0.0" in vdproj
        string setupproj = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(setupfileName);
        int startPosOfProductVersion = setupproj.IndexOf("\"ProductVersion\" = \"") +20;
        int endPosOfProductVersion = setupproj.IndexOf(Environment.NewLine, startPosOfProductVersion) - startPosOfProductVersion;
        string versionStr = setupproj.Substring(startPosOfProductVersion, endPosOfProductVersion);
        versionStr = versionStr.Replace("\"", string.Empty).Replace("8:",string.Empty);

        if (Path.GetExtension(fileName).ToLower() == ".vb")
        isVB = true;

        if (fileName == "") {
        System.Console.WriteLine("Usage: AssemblyInfoUtil 
           <path to :Setup.vdproj file> and  <path to AssemblyInfo.cs or AssemblyInfo.vb file> [options]");
        System.Console.WriteLine("Options: ");
        System.Console.WriteLine("  -setup:Setup.vdproj file path");
        System.Console.WriteLine("  -ass:Assembly file path");
        return;
        }

        if (!File.Exists(fileName)) {
        System.Console.WriteLine
            ("Error: Can not find file \"" + fileName + "\"");
        return;
        }

        System.Console.Write("Processing \"" + fileName + "\"...");
        StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(fileName);
             StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(fileName + ".out");
        String line;

        while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null) {
        line = ProcessLine(line);
        writer.WriteLine(line);
        }
        reader.Close();
        writer.Close();

        File.Delete(fileName);
        File.Move(fileName + ".out", fileName);
        System.Console.WriteLine("Done!");
    }

    private static string ProcessLine(string line) {
        if (isVB) {
        line = ProcessLinePart(line, "<Assembly: AssemblyVersion(\"");
        line = ProcessLinePart(line, "<Assembly: AssemblyFileVersion(\"");
        } 
        else {
        line = ProcessLinePart(line, "[assembly: AssemblyVersion(\"");
        line = ProcessLinePart(line, "[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion(\"");
        }
        return line;
    }

    private static string ProcessLinePart(string line, string part) {
        int spos = line.IndexOf(part);
        if (spos >= 0) {
        spos += part.Length;
        int epos = line.IndexOf('"', spos);
        string oldVersion = line.Substring(spos, epos - spos);
        string newVersion = "";
        bool performChange = false;

        if (incParamNum > 0) {
            string[] nums = oldVersion.Split('.');
            if (nums.Length >= incParamNum && nums[incParamNum - 1] != "*") {
            Int64 val = Int64.Parse(nums[incParamNum - 1]);
            val++;
            nums[incParamNum - 1] = val.ToString();
            newVersion = nums[0]; 
            for (int i = 1; i < nums.Length; i++) {
                newVersion += "." + nums[i];
            }
            performChange = true;
            }
        }

        else if (versionStr != null) {
            newVersion = versionStr;
            performChange = true;
        }

        if (performChange) {
            StringBuilder str = new StringBuilder(line);
            str.Remove(spos, epos - spos);
            str.Insert(spos, newVersion);
            line = str.ToString();
        }
        } 
        return line;
    }
     }
}

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Answer 2:

To my way of thinking a better way is to use a Shared Assembly Info class rather than individual AssemblyInfo class files.

To implement this, create a file in the solution folder named SharedAssemblyInfo.cs and then add a link in each project to SharedAssemblyInfo.cs. You can also move the linked SharedAssemblyInfo.cs into the Properties folder so that it sits side-by-side with the AssemblyInfo.cs that is specific to each project in the solution, as shown below.

Here is a sample SharedAssemblyInfo.cs file:

using System;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Runtime.CompilerServices;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

// General Information about an assembly is controlled through the following 
// set of attributes. Change these attribute values to modify the information
// associated with an assembly.
[assembly: AssemblyCompany("Saint Bart Technologies")]
[assembly: AssemblyProduct("Demo")]
[assembly: AssemblyCopyright("Copyright ? Saint Bart 2013")]
[assembly: AssemblyTrademark("")]

// Make it easy to distinguish Debug and Release (i.e. Retail) builds;
// for example, through the file properties window.
#if DEBUG
[assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("Debug")]
[assembly: AssemblyDescription("Flavor=Debug")] // a.k.a. "Comments"
#else
[assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("Retail")]
[assembly: AssemblyDescription("Flavor=Retail")] // a.k.a. "Comments"
#endif

[assembly: CLSCompliant(true)]

// Setting ComVisible to false makes the types in this assembly not visible 
// to COM components.  If you need to access a type in this assembly from 
// COM, set the ComVisible attribute to true on that type.
[assembly: ComVisible(false)]

// Note that the assembly version does not get incremented for every build
// to avoid problems with assembly binding (or requiring a policy or
// <bindingRedirect> in the config file).
//
// The AssemblyFileVersionAttribute is incremented with every build in order
// to distinguish one build from another. AssemblyFileVersion is specified
// in AssemblyVersionInfo.cs so that it can be easily incremented by the
// automated build process.
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.0.0")]

// By default, the "Product version" shown in the file properties window is
// the same as the value specified for AssemblyFileVersionAttribute.
// Set AssemblyInformationalVersionAttribute to be the same as
// AssemblyVersionAttribute so that the "Product version" in the file
// properties window matches the version displayed in the GAC shell extension.
[assembly: AssemblyInformationalVersion("1.0.0.0")] // a.k.a. "Product version"

Here is a sample AssemblyInfo.cs file:

// Note: Shared assembly information is specified in SharedAssemblyInfo.cs
using System.Reflection;
using System.Runtime.CompilerServices;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
// General Information about an assembly is controlled through the following 
// set of attributes. Change these attribute values to modify the information
// associated with an assembly.
[assembly: AssemblyTitle("WindowsFormsApplication2")]
// The following GUID is for the ID of the typelib if this project is exposed to COM
[assembly: Guid("ffded14d-6c95-440b-a45d-e1f502476539")]

So each time you want to change all projects Assembly info you can do it in one spot. I assume you would want to set the MSI Setup Version the same as the Assembly version number, one manual step.

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Answer 3:

Consider switching to use MSBuild it has all these kinds of benefits but I'm not sure if you have the time to pick it up right now.

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Answer 4:

Assemblies can auto-increment their build numbers using the following asterisk syntax within AssemblyInfo.cs:

[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.0.*")]

This is a good method because the point of tracking a build number is to be able to recognize different builds. Having a pre-build changing build numbers defeats this purpose as the build has not yet occurred.

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Answer 5:

The other CodeProject answer here assumes you want to update the ProductVersion, ProductCode, PackageCode in the Setup MSI Project file. I didn't interpret your question that way and according to this thread there are problems: pre-build event to change setup project's ProductVersion doesn't take effect until after the build

Answer 6 (new):

There is a few TFS Build plugins to set "Assembly Info": https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=bleddynrichards.Assembly-Info-Task https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=bool.update-assembly-info https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ggarbuglia.setassemblyversion-task