MSBuild TFS Build Number

Question

Hi,

I have been using SVN for a little while now. recently on a project I am using TFS. With the builds I like to append/update the build version number on the project output. I do this on the masterpage so that it is clearly visible on the application. Since the application could be running on multiple machines, it is handy information on which verison are running.

I achive this in SVN world as:

Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\MSBuildCommunityTasks\MSBuild.Community.Tasks.Targets" /
Target Name="BeforeBuild"
SvnVersion LocalPath="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)" ToolPath="$(ProgramFiles)\CollabNet Subversion Client"
Output TaskParameter="Revision" PropertyName="Revision" /
/SvnVersion
Time
Output TaskParameter="Year" PropertyName="Year" /
Output TaskParameter="Month" PropertyName="Month" /
Output TaskParameter="Day" PropertyName="Day" /
/Time
FileUpdate Files="MasterPage.master" Regex="svn revision: (\d+)\.(\d+)\.(\d+)\.(\d+)" ReplacementText="svn revision: $(Year).$(Month).$(Day).$(Revision)" /
/Target

As you can see above the "BeforeBuild" task updates the masterPage.master file with the YYYY.MM.DD.SVNVERSION stamp.

How can I achive this with TFS as the source control. How do I get the TFS build number?

**** I could not manage to get the code snippet going. the above are lines from msbuild file. visualise it with tags on the ends.

Answer 1

Assuming you mean Team Build, the $(BuildNumber) property contains the current build number.

See http://blogs.msdn.com/aaronhallberg/archive/2008/02/12/team-build-2008-property-reference.aspx for a full reference of available properties.

If you're just running MSBuild, I don't believe it generates/applies an overall build number (each project will have an individual, possibly auto-incremented, version number in its AssemblyInfo.cs [by default] file). You can dynamically get this version number for a specific assembly using the System.Reflection.Assembly class at runtime.