I have a C# project in Visual Studio 2022.
In the AssemblyInfo.cs file I have an AssemblyVersion attribute:
using System.Reflection;
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.2.3")
I want to generate a NuGet package automatically on build, and I was wondering if it would be possible to specify, in the package properties dialog, to use the AssemblyVersion as package version, to avoid having to remember to change the version in two places each time.
Something like this (which doesn't work):
Is there a way to do this?
The $(AssemblyVersion) value is trying to reference an MSBuild property. It cannot see an [AssemblyVersion] attribute in your code at build time. I recommend you move the specification of the version to your project file (search for "version" in that UI, or edit your .csproj and set the <Version> property manually. In that way you only have to set the value once; the version will be set on the assembly, and used during pack operations.
You can remove the AssemblyInfo and specify the version in your csproj file (see below). dotnet pack then should produce both package and dll with correct version.
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
<PropertyGroup>
...
<Version>MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH</Version>
<IsPackable>true</IsPackable>
</PropertyGroup>
...
</Project>
Related
I have a Blazor app that the generated DLL does not get updated with the referenced <AssemblyVersion>2022.01.14.1</AssemblyVersion> found in the .csproj file.
Nor does the <FileVersion> and <Version>
Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2022 (64-bit)
Version 17.0.5
How do you check the version, from the code or from the file properties?
I tried the scenario you described on a Blazor application, and after building the project in the properties of the .dll file I can see all versions I set in the .csproj
<PropertyGroup>
<TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>
<Nullable>enable</Nullable>
<ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
<AssemblyVersion>2022.01.14.1</AssemblyVersion>
<FileVersion>2022.01.14.1</FileVersion>
<Version>3.3.3.3-xyz</Version>
And the result can be seen in the image below:
Is it possible that some other external process changes the version in the files after you build?
I noticed in new .NET Core projects there is no AssemblyInfo.cs file created. I have seen that you can still set assembly attributes such as AssemblyVersion and so forth.
Are there still any valid reasons to use an AssemblyInfo.cs file?
You can absolutely create an AssemblyInfo.cs file and configure your assembly like you did in the past. Of course, since the properties are set using assembly attributes, you do not need to use AssemblyInfo but can choose any other file name or even an existing one.
That being said, the reason that the AssemblyInfo.cs is no longer included in the default templates is that the new SDK-style project type supports setting this information within the csproj project file.
So the usual approach to setting the version of your assembly would be to set the Version property within your project file (or have that automatically set as part of your build process). For example:
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
<PropertyGroup>
<TargetFramework>netcoreapp3.0</TargetFramework>
<Version>1.2.3</Version>
</PropertyGroup>
…
</Project>
Since this is a MSBuild property, you can also set this during the build process e.g. with dotnet build /p:Version=1.2.3.
There are also the properties VersionPrefix and VersionSuffix which can be used to automatically construct version numbers from the environment (e.g. Git commit ids, or build numbers).
In addition to the version related properties, there are also some more NuGet properties you can set in the project file, which makes the AssemblyInfo.cs mostly redundant.
According to migration guide, these days, we have few flexible ways to set up assembly attributes.
Use old-style AssemblyInfo.cs file (create manually).
using System;
using System.Reflection;
[assembly: System.Reflection.AssemblyCompanyAttribute("...")]
[assembly: System.Reflection.AssemblyCopyrightAttribute("...")]
[assembly: System.Reflection.AssemblyDescriptionAttribute("...")]
[assembly: System.Reflection.AssemblyFileVersionAttribute("...")]
[assembly: System.Reflection.AssemblyInformationalVersionAttribute("...")]
[assembly: System.Reflection.AssemblyProductAttribute("...")]
[assembly: System.Reflection.AssemblyTitleAttribute("...")]
[assembly: System.Reflection.AssemblyVersionAttribute("1.0.0-dev01234567")]
Use MSBuild's properties to generate assembly attributes on build time (may be static in your.csproj or passed via command line arguments like /property:Version=1.0.0-dev01234567).
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">
<PropertyGroup>
<Company>...</Company>
<Copyright>...</Copyright>
<Description>...</Description>
<Product>...</Product>
<AssemblyTitle>...</AssemblyTitle>
<Version>1.0.0-dev01234567</Version>
</PropertyGroup>
...
</Project>
Note: you may merge both solutions but avoid duplicates of assembly attributes.
I'm using Visual Studio 2022 and .NET Core 6.
Right click on the project in Solution Explorer
Edit Project File
Here is an example project file containing Version, AssemblyVersion and FileVersion:
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
<PropertyGroup>
<OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
<TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>
<ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
<Nullable>enable</Nullable>
<Version>1.0.0</Version>
<AssemblyVersion>1.0.0.0</AssemblyVersion>
<FileVersion>1.0.0.0</FileVersion>
</PropertyGroup>
...
</Project>
Reasons for still using an AssemblyInfo.cs file might include
you want to share some of the AssemblyInfo across projects,
which you can do with a file
you might have a code-generation process that spits out the assemblyinfo
the project file format doesn't yet support all the attributes you might want to use. The project Sdk knows how to auto-generate a limited set of [AssembyAttributes] from Xml Elements with matching names in the csproj file, but it doesn't support autogeneration of arbitrary [AssembyAttributes] or other metadata for your assembly.
AssemblyInfo.cs is “just” a source code file, you might have other metadata – whether AssemblyAttributes or classes or other – you want to keep all in one easily found place.
From Your Project -> Select Properties
On left panel select Package/General
At field Assembly version and File version enter your version (ex: 1.0.0.0)
When compiling a .net core Web MVC project VS / Compiler creates an assembly called [MyMvcProject].Views.dll with an AssemblyFileVersion of 0.0.0.0.
Is it possible to change the Version for this generated file (and maybe also change other Assembly properties?
UPDATE
I've added Manually AssemblyInfo.cs and edited my csproj with <GenerateAssemblyInfo>false</GenerateAssemblyInfo>
With this constellation it seems that the data is not propagated to [MyMvcProject].Views.dll
I would like to stick with AssemblyInfo.cs because I share the this file over several projects. (Unless there's another solution to have consistent Assembly Versions over many projects).
Still would like to give [MyMvcProject].Views.dll a specific version.
Any idea?
I would like to stick with AssemblyInfo.cs because I share the this file over several projects. (Unless there's another solution to have consistent Assembly Versions over many projects).
You can use a Directory.Build.props file to achieve this. This file is recognised automatically by the dotnet build system (it's part of MSBuild) and will apply to all projects within the same directory or lower. If you want to apply a Version property for an entire solution, for example, you can drop a Directory.Build.props file next to the .sln file, with the following contents:
<Project>
<PropertyGroup>
<FileVersion>1.0.0.404</FileVersion>
</PropertyGroup>
</Project>
As you might expect, this AssemblyFileVersion property will also apply to your [MyMvcProject].Views.dll assembly.
Here's a detailed list of the AssemblyInfo properties you can specify when using this approach: AssemblyInfo properties.
Addition by #gsharp:
If there's also a version set in the project properties, then the project version will "win" over the Directory.Build.props version.
Go to your project "Properties" and on "Package" tab you have most of the properties that are in AssemblyInfo in classic .Net Framework projects like "Assembly version" and "Assembly file version".
Also you could try to use this command to build your project: dotnet publish /p:Version=1.2.3
I'm using dotnet core. This is for a CI process, not local builds. I'd like to allow devs to create AssemblyInfo.cs files for things like title etc but I'd like my build process to have control over the assembly's version.
Currently I'm using the "dotnet build ... /p:Version=1.2.3.4" command, but as soon as an AssemblyInfo.cs file is present this version number is superseded, even if the AssemblyInfo.cs doesn't specify any version properties.
The only way I can control the version from the CLI is to remove the AssemblyInfo.cs file. Is there any way of doing this without resorting to manually altering the AssemblyInfo.cs file before build?
The tooling generates a custom .cs file containing assembly attributes. The compiler only allows each attribute to be defined just one. Usually you'd turn off the automatic assembly info generation completely, but the SDK enables you to control the generation of each attribute individually.
So if you edit the csproj file to contain these property group (inside the <Project> element):
<PropertyGroup>
<!-- true is the default here -->
<GenerateAssemblyInfo>true</GenerateAssemblyInfo>
<GenerateAssemblyCopyrightAttribute>false</GenerateAssemblyCopyrightAttribute>
<GenerateAssemblyDescriptionAttribute>false</GenerateAssemblyDescriptionAttribute>
<GenerateAssemblyProductAttribute>false</GenerateAssemblyProductAttribute>
<GenerateAssemblyTitleAttribute>false</GenerateAssemblyTitleAttribute>
</PropertyGroup>
These properties won't be auto-generated during compilation and you can define them in a custom property. The complete list is available in the dotnet/sdk repo.
Recently, I started to pack nuget packages out of my several projects. First I started with the Package Explorer application. It is a nice tool, but it's less useful if you do continuous integration. Then I looked into specifying the nuspec template file, and passing changing data, e.g. version number, as command line arguments. Later, I wondered how to define the nuget package dependencies. As it turns out, the nuget.exe already does this based on the package.config if you specify a csproj. Moreover, it extracts relevant data like Author, Version, Copyright right from the assembly info. What I'm missing right now is the ability to specify a licenseUrl in the command line. But I wanted the question to be more generic. And so I'm asking:
What is the prefered way to pack nuget packages?
Here's a little-known fact: you can combine both!
Target a csproj file, and make sure there's a nuspec file in the same directory with the same name as the csproj file. NuGet will merge the two during package creation.
So in short: target <ProjectName>.csproj, optionally add a corresponding tokenized <ProjectName>.nuspec file to be used as metadata by NuGet.exe.
It saves you from managing output location, dependencies, version, and other stuff that can be derived from the project.
With a .csproj for Visual Studio 2017, you don't need a .nuspec file. You can actually add the values directly to your csproj and it will pick them up.
Right click the project in Visual Studio, Edit xxxxx.csproj. Notepad works fine too.
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
<PropertyGroup>
<Version>1.0.1</Version>
<authors>Subtracts</authors>
<TargetFrameworks>netstandard1.6;net452</TargetFrameworks>
<AssemblyName>Checkout.net</AssemblyName>
<PackageId>Checkout.net</PackageId>
...
</Project>
p.s. Since I don't have sufficient reputation to comment, I am leaving an answer instead of a comment on Xavier's answer. :)
For simple packages you can directly create the packages off .csproj or .vbproj. But for more advance packages, especially when you need to pull in custom files into your package, you need to use .nuspec. I usually start off with the csproj and move to nuspec as needed. You can always get the nuspec using the command nuget spec on the csproj.
https://docs.nuget.org/create/creating-and-publishing-a-package
You can specify any of the properties including licenseUrl using the Properties parameter to nuget pack
nuget pack -properties licenseUrl=http://blah
With .NET Core as of February 2018 you'll need to supply a .nuspec file for any more than the basic spec file properties.
But the dotnet pack command will not use the .nuspec file unless you add <NuspecFile>relative path to nuspec</NuspecFile> to the .csproj file.
See https://github.com/dotnet/cli/issues/2170
Most packages can now be made without a .nuspec file. The thing to watch is the dependencies. You may need to add a PrivateAssets element to some that are tools, like msbump and um, SpecFlow maybe.
<PackageReference Include="msbump" Version="2.3.2">
<PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
</PackageReference>
This stops this package dependency "flowing" to the dependencies of your package.
Also worth reading about specifying versions in the most flexible way.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/nuget/consume-packages/dependency-resolution#floating-versions
And range syntax.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/nuget/reference/package-versioning#references-in-project-files-packagereference