In AssemblyInfo.cs:
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.*")]
Will generates a 1.0.x.x four digits version number.
Which, if I use this nuspec metadata:
<version>$version$-test</version>
generates an error when packing:
The version « 1.0.5431.31092-test » does not follow semantic version control instructions
Is there a simple way around this?
Not possible, an assembly's version is stored in the System.Version class, that consists of Major, Minor, Build and Revision.
EDIT: I was a bit to hasty to answer. When you use the AssemblyVersionAttribute's constructor with a string containing an asterix, all four properties of a version will be generated. The only way to cause a version with lesser numbers is to specify the exact version number, without asterix, i.e "1.0.1". See: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.reflection.assemblyversionattribute.assemblyversionattribute(v=vs.110).aspx
What you could do, if you want lesser numbers in the version and also generated version numbers, is to use an external tool altering version numbers in the pre-build step.
No post processing is necessary, NuGet is using [assembly: AssemblyInformationalVersion("")] as a package version, set it to whatever number of componets you please and be done with it.
P.S I strongly encourage you to also set AssemblyVersion as this is the one .NET actually uses, at least set it to auto increment
Some reading available here
Full example
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.*")]
[assembly: AssemblyInformationalVersion("1.0")]
Will generate a package Lib.1.0.nupkg containing assembly with 1.0.x.x version, version you will be dealing with is 1.0
Whenever you want to change nuget version, just change AssemblyInformationalVersion, not touch AssemblyVersion at all
I'm trying to find a more meaningful way to handle versioning for my app and I came acrossed this KB article
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/556041
Basically it's recommending that the Assembly version be fixed, and the File Version be imcremented for each build. Now this makes perfect sense to me but for the life of me I can't seem to implement it.
The below snippet auto increments both Assembly version and FileVersion.
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.*")]
While this next one seems to set a fixed Assembly version of 1.0.0.0 and a fixed File Version of 1.0.*.
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0")]
[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("1.0.*")]
Incidentally, the Product Version in Details tab of the file properties reads 1.0.* now as well. Now I can fix the Product Version in the file properties with this...
[assembly: AssemblyInformationalVersion("1.0")]
But that doesn't help with my original task. Out of curiosity I tried the below and the File version changed to 2.0.*, so it is at least using it. It's just not auto incrementing.
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0")]
[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("2.0.*")]
So from what I can gather the only version number that auto increments is the Assembly Version, but on the off chance you haven't specified a File Version it gets set to the same as the Assembly Version.
Does anyone know of a way to auto increment the File Version while leaving the Assembly Version fixed?
Yes it's a bit silly, Microsoft seems to have got it the wrong way round. AssemblyVersion is used in the .NET assembly versioning system, so you should never auto-increment it, but AssemblyFileVersion is written to the file version entry in the file's version resource, so you might reasonably expect it to always auto-increment by default.
I'm sure that there are some 3rd party build systems out there that can do this for you, but I just wrote a little command line C# app to do it, and it gets run on every project as part of our build process. It's very straightforward:
Read the AssemblyInfo.cs file line by line.
Do a RegEx search for the AssemblyFileVersion line, capturing all four version parts into separate capture groups. You could parse it yourself, but a regex will do all the detecting and parsing in one go, so it seems silly not to take advantage.
Once you have the four integers, implement your own incrementing logic as you see fit.
I hava a quite complex solution, containing 10 projects aside from Test projects.
It is a network of distributed applications & services that communicate using remoting; therefore having the proper referenced assemblies (& versions) is crucial. That's why I want the whole thing to be compiled and schrink-wrapped in ONE build.
One of the applications is a demo/analysis-tool that runs a subprocess of another - much bigger - application based on the user's input and displays the results; That way engineers have a tool to help tweak their settings for "the big computation". Obviously that subprocess is contained in another assembly, and a big part of te results presented to the engineers is generated by
#if ENABLE_TRACE_MATCHING
Trace.WriteLine("Some engineering output");
#endif
My problem is that Conditional Compilation Symbols in the project settings are limited to that project's assembly, and do not propagate over referenced assemblies.
How can I configure my build in such a way that all projects will be built without ENABLE_TRACE_MATCHING being defined, except for the one debug/analysis-app project where all referenced projects/assemblies must be compiled with ENABLE_TRACE_MATCHING being defined
I also cannot replace #if ENABLE_TRACE_MATCHING by #if DEBUG, since that would enable a whole lot of different output our engineers wouldn't know how to handle.
Thanks in advance.
PS: If you think my code smells, then I agree. Additionally: It's mostly not my code ;)
You need to learn more about Microsoft Build, which is an out-of-the-box Microsoft .NET tool present in any framework's installation.
Using MSBuild you can define these "symbols" (properties) and a batch of commands (targets).
That's you can create a MSBuild script that imports default Visual Studio targets from all projects in your solution, and declare in the script these properties ("symbols").
In fact, the property to set such symbols already exists: "DefineConstants".
So, since you have it, you can have that MSBuild script that provides that property value, re-declaring it there, so, ALL MSBuild targets will be knowing about these symbols.
EDIT:
Check this other question too:
msbuild, defining Conditional Compilation Symbols
So here's the problem. I'm writing some StyleCop plug-in assemblies for use at the company I work for. As such, these assemblies need to reference Microsoft.StyleCop.CSharp.dll for example, which is strongly named.
The problem comes in that if I build this and pass it along to the developers in my group, they must have the same version of the StyleCop dll (currently 4.3.3.0) or it fails to load.
What is the best way to make my add-on rules DLL more independent? Should I just install my 4.3.3.0 version of those subordinate StyleCop dlls in the GAC? Can an assembly (vs an application) use a policy file?
Oh, and one of the main problems is i would like it to work with ANY version of StyleCop the client has installed (or at least 4.3.3.0 or later) if possible.
Many thanks in advance.
Yes you should just install the same version for the other developers. If you do not, you may have unpredictable runtime failures due to changes within StyleCop. Presumably that is why they bothered to increment the version number.
If you don't want to do this, you can configure a different assembly binding in the app.config file. In the config the actual version number which you intend to use at runtime is needed. And yes, this can even be done via policy. But again, I think you are better served by including the correct DLL in the first place.
In your project, go to the properties on the StyleCop reference. Try setting the "Specific Version" property to false.
To preface, I've been working with C# for a few months, but I'm completely unfamiliar with concepts like deployment and assemblies, etc. My questions are many and varied, although I'm furiously Googling and reading about them to no avail (I currently have Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform in front of me).
We have this process and it's composed of three components: an engine, a filter, and logic for the process. We love this process so much we want it reused in other projects. So now I'm starting to explore the space beyond one solution, one project.
Does this sound correct? One huge Solution:
Process A, exe
Process B, exe
Process C, exe
Filter, dll
Engine, dll
The engine is shared code for all of the processes, so I'm assuming that can be a shared assembly? If a shared assembly is in the same solution as a project that consumes it, how does it get consumed if it's supposed to be in the GAC? I've read something about a post build event. Does that mean the engine.dll has to be reployed on every build?
Also, the principle reason we separated the filter from the process (only one process uses it) is so that we can deploy the filter independently from the process so that the process executable doesn't need to be updated. Regardless of if that's best practice, let's just roll with it. Is this possible? I've read that assemblies link to specific versions of other assemblies, so if I update the DLL only, it's actually considered tampering. How can I update the DLL without changing the EXE? Is that what a publisher policy is for?
By the way, is any of this stuff Google-able or Amazon-able? What should I look for? I see lots of books about C# and .NET, but none about deployment or building or testing or things not related to the language itself.
I agree with Aequitarum's analysis. Just a couple additional points:
The engine is shared code for all of the processes, so I'm assuming that can be a shared assembly?
That seems reasonable.
If a shared assembly is in the same solution as a project that consumes it, how does it get consumed if it's supposed to be in the GAC?
Magic.
OK, its not magic. Let's suppose that in your solution your process project has a reference to the engine project. When you build the solution, you'll produce a project assembly that has a reference to the engine assembly. Visual Studio then copies the various files to the right directories. When you execute the process assembly, the runtime loader knows to look in the current directory for the engine assembly. If it cannot find it there, it looks in the global assembly cache. (This is a highly simplified view of loading policy; the real policy is considerably more complex than that.)
Stuff in the GAC should be truly global code; code that you reasonably expect large numbers of disparate projects to use.
Does that mean the engine.dll has to be reployed on every build?
I'm not sure what you mean by "redeployed". Like I said, if you have a project-to-project reference, the build system will automatically copy the files around to the right places.
the principle reason we separated the filter from the process (only one process uses it) is so that we can deploy the filter independently from the process so that the process executable doesn't need to be updated
I question whether that's actually valuable. Scenario one: no filter assembly, all filter code is in project.exe. You wish to update the filter code; you update project.exe. Scenario two: filter.dll, project.exe. You wish to update the filter code; you update filter.dll. How is scenario two cheaper or easier than scenario one? In both scenarios you're updating a file; why does it matter what the name of the file is?
However, perhaps it really is cheaper and easier for your particular scenario. The key thing to understand about assemblies is assemblies are the smallest unit of independently versionable and redistributable code. If you have two things and it makes sense to version and ship them independently of each other, then they should be in different assemblies; if it does not make sense to do that, then they should be in the same assembly.
I've read that assemblies link to specific versions of other assemblies, so if I update the DLL only, it's actually considered tampering. How can I update the DLL without changing the EXE? Is that what a publisher policy is for?
An assembly may be given a "strong name". When you name your assembly Foo.DLL, and you write Bar.EXE to say "Bar.EXE depends on Foo.DLL", then the runtime will load anything that happens to be named Foo.DLL; file names are not strong. If an evil hacker gets their own version of Foo.DLL onto the client machine, the loader will load it. A strong name lets Bar.EXE say "Bar.exe version 1.2 written by Bar Corporation depends on Foo.DLL version 1.4 written by Foo Corporation", and all the verifications are done against the cryptographically strong keys associated with Foo Corp and Bar Corp.
So yes, an assembly may be configured to bind only against a specific version from a specific company, to prevent tampering. What you can do to update an assembly to use a newer version is create a little XML file that tells the loader "you know how I said I wanted Foo.DLL v1.4? Well, actually if 1.5 is available, its OK to use that too."
What should I look for? I see lots of books about C# and .NET, but none about deployment or building or testing or things not related to the language itself.
Deployment is frequently neglected in books, I agree.
I would start by searching for "ClickOnce" if you're interested in deployment of managed Windows applications.
Projects can reference assemblies or projects.
When you reference another assembly/project, you are allowed to use all the public classes/enums/structs etc in the referenced assembly.
You do not need to have all of them in one solution. You can have three solutions, one for each Process, and all three solutions can load Engine and Filter.
Also, you could have Process B and Process C reference the compiled assemblies (the .dll's) of the Engine and Filter and have similar effect.
As long as you don't set the property in the reference to an assembly to require a specific version, you can freely update DLLs without much concern, providing the only code changes were to the DLL.
Also, the principle reason we
separated the filter from the process
(only one process uses it) is so that
we can deploy the filter independently
from the process so that the process
executable doesn't need to be updated.
Regardless of if that's best practice,
let's just roll with it. Is this
possible?
I actually prefer this method of updating. Less overhead to update only files that changed rather than everything everytime.
As for using the GAC, whole other level of complexity I won't get into.
Tamper proofing your assemblies can be done by signing them, which is required to use the GAC in the first place, but you should still be fine so long as a specific version is not required.
My recommendation is to read a book about the .NET framework. This will really help you understand the CLR and what you're doing.
Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming was a book I really enjoyed reading.
You mention the engine is shared code, which is why you put it in a separate project under your solution. There's nothing wrong with doing it this way, and it's not necessary to add this DLL to the GAC. During your development phase, you can just add a reference to your engine project, and you'll be able to call the code from that assembly. When you want to deploy this application, you can either deploy the engine DLL with it, or you can add the engine DLL to the GAC (which is another ball of wax in and of itself). I tend to lean against GAC deployments unless it's truly necessary. One of the best features of .NET is the ability to deploy everything you need to run your application in one folder without having to copy stuff to system folders (i.e. the GAC).
If you want to achieve something like dynamically loading DLL's and calling member methods from your processor without caring about specific version, you can go a couple of routes. The easiest route is to just set the Specific Version property to False when you add the reference. This will give you the liberty of changing the DLL later, and as long as you don't mess with method signatures, it shouldn't be a problem. The second option is the MEF (which uses Reflection and will be part of the framework in .NET 4.0). The idea with the MEF is that you can scan a "plugins" style folder for DLL's that implement specific functionality and then call them dynamically. This gives you some additional flexibility in that you can add new assemblies later without the need to modify your references.
Another thing to note is that there are Setup and Deployment project templates built into Visual Studio that you can use to generate MSI packages for deploying your projects. MSDN has lots of documentation related to this subject that you can check out, here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ybshs20f%28VS.80%29.aspx
Do not use the GAC on your build machine, it is a deployment detail. Visual Studio automatically copies the DLL into build directory of your application when you reference the DLL. That ensures that you'll run and debug with the expected version of the DLL.
When you deploy, you've got a choice. You can ship the DLL along with the application that uses it, stored in the EXE installation folder. Nothing special is needed, the CLR can always find the DLL and you don't have to worry about strong names or versions. A bug fix update is deployed simply by copying the new DLL into the EXE folder.
When you have several installed apps with a dependency on the DLL then deploying bug fix updates can start to get awkward. Since you have to copy to the DLL repeatedly, once for each app. And you can get into trouble when you update some apps but not others. Especially so when there's a breaking change in the DLL interface that requires the app to be recompiled. That's DLL Hell knocking, the GAC can solve that.
We found some guidance on this issue at MSDN. We started with two separate solution with no shared code, and then abstracted the commonalities to a shared assemblies. We struggled with ways to isolate changes in the shared code to impact only the projects that were ready for it. We were terrible at Open/Close.
We tried
branching the shared code for each project that used it and including it in the solution
copying the shared assembly from the shared solution when we made changes
coding pre-build events to build the shared code solution and copy the assembly
Everything was a real pain. We ended up using one large solution with all the projects in it. We branch each project as we want to stage features closer to production. This branches the shared code as well. It's simplified things a lot and we get a better idea of what tests fail across all projects, as the common code changes.
As far as deployment, our build scripts are setup to build the code and copy only the files that have changed, including the assemblies, to our environments.
By default, you have a hardcoded version number in your project (1.0.0.0). As long as you don't change it, you can use all Filter builds with the Process assembly (it only knows it should use the 1.0.0.0 version). This is not the best solution, however, because how do you distinguish between various builds yourself?
Another option is use different versions of the Filter by the same Process. You should add an app.config file to the Process project, and include a bindingRedirect element (see the docs). Whenever the Runtime looks for a particular version of the Filter, it's "redirected" to a version indicated in the config. Unfortunately, this means that although you don't have to update the Process assembly, you'll have to update the config file with the new version.
Whenever you encounter versioning problems, you can use Fuslogvw.exe (fusion log viewer) to troubleshoot these.
Have fun!
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