Programmatically get the version number of a DLL

Question

Is it possible to get the version number programmatically from any  NET DLL   If yes  how

User · Answer

You can use System Reflection Assembly Load    methods and then grab their AssemblyInfo

User · Answer

First of all  there are two possible  versions  that you might be interested in    Windows filesystem file version  applicable to all executable files Assembly build version  which is embedded in a  NET assembly by the compiler  obviously only applicable to  NET assembly dll and exe files    In the former case  you should use Ben Anderson s answer  in the latter case  use AssemblyName GetAssemblyName   c  path to file dll   Version  or Tataro s answer  in case the assembly is referenced by your code   Note that you can ignore all the answers that use  Load    LoadFrom   methods  since these actually load the assembly in the current AppDomain - which is analogous to cutting down a tree to see how old it is

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While the original question may not have been specific to a web service  here is a complete testWebService you can add to display a web service non-cached response plus the file version  We use file version instead of assembly version because we want to know a version  but with all assembly versions 1 0 0 0  the web site can be easily patched  signing and demand link still active    Replace  Class  with the name of the web api controller this service is embedded in  It s good for a go nogo on a web service plus a quick version check       Route  api testWebService       AllowAnonymous     HttpGet    public HttpResponseMessage TestWebService             HttpResponseMessage responseMessage   Request CreateResponse HttpStatusCode OK         string loc   Assembly GetAssembly typeof  Class    Location        FileVersionInfo versionInfo   FileVersionInfo GetVersionInfo loc         responseMessage Content   new StringContent    lt h2 gt The XXXXX web service GET test succeeded  lt  h2 gt  DateTime Now  lt br  gt  lt br  gt File Version   versionInfo FileVersion           responseMessage Content Headers ContentType   new MediaTypeHeaderValue  text html          Request RegisterForDispose responseMessage         return responseMessage        I found it also necessary to add the following to web config under configuration to make it truly anonymous   lt location path  api testwebservice  gt       lt system web gt           lt authorization gt               lt allow users       gt           lt  authorization gt       lt  system web gt   lt  location gt

User · Answer

var versionAttrib   new AssemblyName Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   FullName

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To get it for the assembly that was started  winform  console app  etc      using System Reflection      Assembly GetEntryAssembly   GetName   Version

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Assembly assembly   Assembly LoadFrom  MyAssembly dll    Version ver   assembly GetName   Version    Important  It should be noted that this is not the best answer to the original question  Don t forget to read more on this page

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Answer by  Ben proved to be useful for me  But I needed to check the product version as it was the main increment happening in my software and followed semantic versioning    myFileVersionInfo ProductVersion   This method met my expectations  Update  Instead of explicitly mentioning dll path in program  as needed in production version   we can get product version using Assembly   Assembly assembly   Assembly GetExecutingAssembly    FileVersionInfo fileVersionInfo  FileVersionInfo GetVersionInfo assembly Location    string ProdVersion  fileVersionInfo ProductVersion

User · Answer

Here s a nice way using a bit of reflection to get a version of a DLL containing a particular class   var ver   System Reflection Assembly GetAssembly typeof  Class    GetName   Version    Just replace  Class  with the name of a class which is defined in the DLL you wish to get the version of   This is my preferred method because if I move the DLLs around for different deploys I don t have to change the filepath

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This works if the dll is  net or Win32  Reflection methods only work if the dll is  net  Also  if you use reflection  you have the overhead of loading the whole dll into memory  The below method does not load the assembly into memory      Get the file version  FileVersionInfo myFileVersionInfo   FileVersionInfo GetVersionInfo   C  MyAssembly dll        Print the file name and version number  Console WriteLine  File      myFileVersionInfo FileDescription     n                       Version number      myFileVersionInfo FileVersion     From  http   msdn microsoft com en-us library system diagnostics fileversioninfo fileversion aspx  original source

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Kris  your version works great when needing to load the assembly from the actual DLL file  and if the DLL is there    however  one will get a much unwanted error if the DLL is EMBEDDED  i e   not a file but an embedded DLL    The other thing is  if one uses a versioning scheme with something like  1 2012 0508 0101   when one gets the version string you ll actually get  1 2012 518 101   note the missing zeros   So  here s a few extra functions to get the version of a DLL  embedded or from the DLL file        public static System Reflection Assembly GetAssembly string pAssemblyName                System Reflection Assembly tMyAssembly   null           if  string IsNullOrEmpty pAssemblyName     return tMyAssembly            tMyAssembly   GetAssemblyEmbedded pAssemblyName           if  tMyAssembly    null    GetAssemblyDLL pAssemblyName              return tMyAssembly         System Reflection Assembly GetAssemblyEmbedded string pAssemblyDisplayName        public static System Reflection Assembly GetAssemblyEmbedded string pAssemblyDisplayName                System Reflection Assembly tMyAssembly   null           if string IsNullOrEmpty pAssemblyDisplayName     return tMyAssembly            try   try  a                       tMyAssembly   System Reflection Assembly Load pAssemblyDisplayName               try  a         catch  Exception ex                        string m   ex Message              try  a         return tMyAssembly         System Reflection Assembly GetAssemblyEmbedded string pAssemblyDisplayName        public static System Reflection Assembly GetAssemblyDLL string pAssemblyNameDLL                System Reflection Assembly tMyAssembly   null           if  string IsNullOrEmpty pAssemblyNameDLL     return tMyAssembly            try   try  a                       if   pAssemblyNameDLL ToLower   EndsWith   dll      pAssemblyNameDLL      dll                 tMyAssembly   System Reflection Assembly LoadFrom pAssemblyNameDLL               try  a         catch  Exception ex                        string m   ex Message              try  a         return tMyAssembly         System Reflection Assembly GetAssemblyFile string pAssemblyNameDLL        public static string GetVersionStringFromAssembly string pAssemblyDisplayName                string tVersion    Unknown           System Reflection Assembly tMyAssembly   null           tMyAssembly   GetAssembly pAssemblyDisplayName           if  tMyAssembly    null    return tVersion            tVersion   GetVersionString tMyAssembly GetName   Version ToString             return tVersion         string GetVersionStringFromAssemblyEmbedded string pAssemblyDisplayName        public static string GetVersionString Version pVersion                string tVersion    Unknown           if  pVersion    null    return tVersion            tVersion   GetVersionString pVersion ToString             return tVersion         string GetVersionString Version pVersion        public static string GetVersionString string pVersionString                string tVersion    Unknown           string   aVersion           if  string IsNullOrEmpty pVersionString     return tVersion            aVersion   pVersionString Split               if  aVersion Length  gt  0    tVersion   aVersion 0             if  aVersion Length  gt  1    tVersion          aVersion 1             if  aVersion Length  gt  2    tVersion          aVersion 2  PadLeft 4   0              if  aVersion Length  gt  3    tVersion          aVersion 3  PadLeft 4   0               return tVersion         string GetVersionString Version pVersion        public static string GetVersionStringFromAssemblyEmbedded string pAssemblyDisplayName                string tVersion    Unknown           System Reflection Assembly tMyAssembly   null           tMyAssembly   GetAssemblyEmbedded pAssemblyDisplayName           if  tMyAssembly    null    return tVersion            tVersion   GetVersionString tMyAssembly GetName   Version ToString             return tVersion         string GetVersionStringFromAssemblyEmbedded string pAssemblyDisplayName        public static string GetVersionStringFromAssemblyDLL string pAssemblyDisplayName                string tVersion    Unknown           System Reflection Assembly tMyAssembly   null           tMyAssembly   GetAssemblyDLL pAssemblyDisplayName           if  tMyAssembly    null    return tVersion            tVersion   GetVersionString tMyAssembly GetName   Version ToString             return tVersion         string GetVersionStringFromAssemblyEmbedded string pAssemblyDisplayName

[c#] Programmatically get the version number of a DLL

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