How to have an auto incrementing version number Visual Studio

Question

I want to store a set of integers that get auto incremented at build time   int MajorVersion   0  int MinorVersion   1  int Revision   92    When I compile  it would auto-increment Revision  When I build the setup project  it would increment MinorVersion  I m OK with doing this manually   MajorVersion would only be incremented manually   Then I could display a version number in menu Help About to the user as      Version  0 1 92   How can this be achieved   This question asks not only how to have an auto-incrementing version number  but also how to use that in code which is a more complete answer than others

User · Answer

If you put an asterisk in for build and revision visual studio uses the number of days since Jan. 1st 2000 as the build number, and the number of seconds since midnight divided by 2 as the revision.

A MUCH better life saver solution is http://autobuildversion.codeplex.com/

It works like a charm and it's VERY flexible.

User · Answer

Star in version  like  2 10 3     - it is simple  but the numbers are too large AutoBuildVersion - looks great but its dont work on my VS2010   DrewChapin s script works  but I can not in my studio set different modes for Debug pre-build event and Release pre-build event    so I changed the script a bit    commamd     CommonProgramFiles x86   microsoft shared TextTemplating 10 0 TextTransform exe  -a     ConfigurationName  1    ProjectDir Properties AssemblyInfo tt    and script  this works to the  Debug  and  Release  configurations     lt    template debug  true  hostspecific  true  language  C     gt   lt    output extension   cs    gt   lt    assembly name  System Windows Forms    gt   lt    import namespace  System IO    gt   lt    import namespace  System Text RegularExpressions    gt   lt       int incRevision   1      int incBuild   1       try   incRevision   Convert ToInt32 this Host ResolveParameterValue        Debug      catch  Exception     incBuild 0        try   incBuild   Convert ToInt32 this Host ResolveParameterValue        Release       catch  Exception     incRevision 0        try           string currentDirectory   Path GetDirectoryName Host TemplateFile           string assemblyInfo   File ReadAllText Path Combine currentDirectory  AssemblyInfo cs             Regex pattern   new Regex  AssemblyVersion       d      d       lt revision gt   d        lt build gt   d                   MatchCollection matches   pattern Matches assemblyInfo           revision   Convert ToInt32 matches 0  Groups  revision   Value    incRevision          build   Convert ToInt32 matches 0  Groups  build   Value    incBuild            catch  Exception         gt  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  Game engine  Keys  F2  Debug trace   F4  Fullscreen   Shift Arrows  Move view        assembly  AssemblyProduct  Game engine     assembly  AssemblyDescription  My engine for game     assembly  AssemblyCompany       assembly  AssemblyCopyright  Copyright    Name 2013     assembly  AssemblyTrademark       assembly  AssemblyCulture          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  Only Windows    assemblies support COM   assembly  ComVisible false       On Windows  the following GUID is for the ID of the typelib if this    project is exposed to COM  On other platforms  it unique identifies the    title storage container when deploying this assembly to the device   assembly  Guid  00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000        Version information for an assembly consists of the following four values             Major Version         Minor Version         Build Number         Revision     assembly  AssemblyVersion  0 1  lt    this revision   gt   lt    this build   gt      assembly  AssemblyFileVersion  0 1  lt    this revision   gt   lt    this build   gt       lt        int revision   0      int build   0    gt

User · Answer

You could try using UpdateVersion by Matt Griffith   It s quite old now  but works well   To use it  you simply need to setup a pre-build event which points at your AssemblyInfo cs file  and the application will update the version numbers accordingly  as per the command line arguments   As the application is open-source  I ve also created a version to increment the version number using the format  Major version   Minor version    year  dayofyear    increment    I ve put the code for my modified version of the UpdateVersion application on GitHub  https   github com munr UpdateVersion

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Here s the quote on AssemblyInfo cs from MSDN      You can specify all the values or you   can accept the default build number    revision number  or both by using an   asterisk     For example     assembly AssemblyVersion  2 3 25 1      indicates 2 as the major version  3 as   the minor version  25 as the build   number  and 1 as the revision number    A version number such as    assembly AssemblyVersion  1 2       specifies 1 as the major version  2 as   the minor version  and accepts the   default build and revision numbers  A   version number such as    assembly AssemblyVersion  1 2 15        specifies 1 as the major version  2 as   the minor version  15 as the build   number  and accepts the default   revision number  The default build   number increments daily  The default   revision number is random   This effectively says  if you put a 1 1   into assembly info  only build number will autoincrement  and it will happen not after every build  but daily  Revision number will change every build  but randomly  rather than in an incrementing fashion   This is probably enough for most use cases  If that s not what you re looking for  you re stuck with having to write a script which will autoincrement version   on pre-build step

User · Answer

You can do more advanced versioning using build scripts such as Build Versioning

User · Answer

You could use the T4 templating mechanism in Visual Studio to generate the required source code from a simple text file        I wanted to configure version information generation for some  NET   projects  It   s been a long time since I investigated available   options  so I searched around hoping to find some simple way of doing   this  What I   ve found didn   t look very encouraging  people write   Visual Studio add-ins and custom MsBuild tasks just to obtain one   integer number  okay  maybe two   This felt overkill for a small   personal project       The inspiration came from one of the StackOverflow discussions where   somebody suggested that T4 templates could do the job  And of course   they can  The solution requires a minimal effort and no Visual Studio   or build process customization  Here what should be done          Create a file with extension   tt  and place there T4 template that will generate AssemblyVersion and AssemblyFileVersion attributes        lt    template language  C     gt         This code was generated by a tool  Any changes made manually will be lost    the next time this code is regenerated       using System Reflection    assembly  AssemblyVersion  1 0 1  lt    this RevisionNumber   gt      assembly  AssemblyFileVersion  1 0 1  lt    this RevisionNumber   gt      lt        int RevisionNumber    int  DateTime UtcNow - new DateTime 2010 1 1   TotalDays    gt       You will have to decide about version number generation algorithm  For   me it was sufficient to auto-generate a revision number that is set to   the number of days since January 1st  2010  As you can see  the   version generation rule is written in plain C   so you can easily   adjust it to your needs          The file above should be placed in one of the projects  I created a new project with just this single file to make version management   technique clear  When I build this project  actually I don   t even need   to build it  saving the file is enough to trigger a Visual Studio   action   the following C  is generated              This code was generated by a tool  Any changes made manually will be lost    the next time this code is regenerated       using System Reflection    assembly  AssemblyVersion  1 0 1 113     assembly  AssemblyFileVersion  1 0 1 113         Yes  today it   s 113 days since January 1st  2010  Tomorrow the   revision number will change          Next step is to remove AssemblyVersion and AssemblyFileVersion attributes from AssemblyInfo cs files in all projects that should   share the same auto-generated version information  Instead choose    Add   existing item    for each projects  navigate to the folder with T4   template file  select corresponding     cs    file and add it as a link    That will do          What I like about this approach is that it is lightweight  no custom   MsBuild tasks   and auto-generated version information is not added to   source control  And of course using C  for version generation   algorithm opens for algorithms of any complexity

User · Answer

This is my implementation of the T4 suggestion    This will increment the build number every time you build the project regardless of the selected configuration  i e  Debug Release   and it will increment the revision number every time you do a Release build  You can continue to update the major and minor version numbers through Application   10148  Assembly Information     To explain in more detail  this will read the existing AssemblyInfo cs file  and use regex to find the AssemblyVersion information and then increment the revision and build numbers based on input from TextTransform exe     Delete your existing AssemblyInfo cs file  Create a AssemblyInfo tt file in its place  Visual Studio should create AssemblyInfo cs and group it with the T4 file after you save the T4 file     lt    template debug  true  hostspecific  true  language  C     gt   lt    output extension   cs    gt   lt    import namespace  System IO    gt   lt    import namespace  System Text RegularExpressions    gt   lt       string output   File ReadAllText this Host ResolvePath  AssemblyInfo cs         Regex pattern   new Regex  AssemblyVersion        lt major gt   d        lt minor gt   d        lt revision gt   d        lt build gt   d               MatchCollection matches   pattern Matches output       if  matches Count    1                 major   Convert ToInt32 matches 0  Groups  major   Value           minor   Convert ToInt32 matches 0  Groups  minor   Value           build   Convert ToInt32 matches 0  Groups  build   Value    1          revision   Convert ToInt32 matches 0  Groups  revision   Value           if  this Host ResolveParameterValue  -   -   BuildConfiguration       Release                revision            gt   using System Reflection  using System Runtime CompilerServices  using System Runtime InteropServices  using System Resources      General Information  assembly  AssemblyTitle  Insert title here     assembly  AssemblyDescription  Insert description here     assembly  AssemblyConfiguration       assembly  AssemblyCompany  Insert company here     assembly  AssemblyProduct  Insert product here     assembly  AssemblyCopyright  Insert copyright here     assembly  AssemblyTrademark  Insert trademark here     assembly  AssemblyCulture          Version informationr   assembly  AssemblyVersion   lt    this major   gt   lt    this minor   gt   lt    this revision   gt   lt    this build   gt      assembly  AssemblyFileVersion   lt    this major   gt   lt    this minor   gt   lt    this revision   gt   lt    this build   gt      assembly  NeutralResourcesLanguageAttribute   en-US       lt        int major   1      int minor   0      int revision   0      int build   0    gt   Add this to your pre-build event     CommonProgramFiles x86   microsoft shared TextTemplating   VisualStudioVersion  TextTransform exe  -a   BuildConfiguration   Configuration     ProjectDir Properties AssemblyInfo tt

User · Answer

If you add an AssemblyInfo class to your project and amend the AssemblyVersion attribute to end with an asterisk  for example    assembly  AssemblyVersion  2 10        Visual studio will increment the final number for you according to these rules  thanks galets  I had that completely wrong    To reference this version in code  so you can display it to the user  you use reflection   For example   Version version   System Reflection Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   GetName   Version  DateTime buildDate   new DateTime 2000  1  1                           AddDays version Build  AddSeconds version Revision   2   string displayableVersion      version    buildDate       Three important gotchas that you should know  From  ashes999   It s also worth noting that if both AssemblyVersion and AssemblyFileVersion are specified  you won t see this on your  exe   From  BrainSlugs83   Setting only the 4th number to be   can be bad  as the version won t always increment  The 3rd number is the number of days since the year 2000  and the 4th number is the number of seconds since midnight  divided by 2   IT IS NOT RANDOM   So if you built the solution late in a day one day  and early in a day the next day  the later build would have an earlier version number  I recommend always using X Y   instead of X Y Z   because your version number will ALWAYS increase this way   Newer versions of Visual Studio give this error         this thread begun in 2009        The specified version string contains wildcards  which are not compatible with determinism  Either remove wildcards from the version string  or disable determinism for this compilation       See this SO answer which explains how to remove determinism  https   stackoverflow com a 58101474 1555612

User · Answer

Use AssemblyInfo cs  Create the file in App Code  and fill out the following or use Google for other attribute property possibilities   AssemblyInfo cs  using System Reflection    assembly  AssemblyDescription  Very useful stuff here      assembly  AssemblyCompany  companyname     assembly  AssemblyCopyright  Copyright    me 2009     assembly  AssemblyProduct  NeatProduct     assembly  AssemblyVersion  1 1        AssemblyVersion being the part you are really after   Then if you are working on a website  in any aspx page  or control  you can add in the  lt Page gt  tag  the following   CompilerOptions   lt folderpath gt  App Code AssemblyInfo cs     replacing folderpath with appropriate variable of course    I don t believe you need to add compiler options in any manner for other classes  all the ones in the App Code should receive the version information when they are compiled   Hope that helps

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