I noticed that when I build a given C# or VB.NET source to produce a DLL, the binary output is different each time. It would be helpful for our build / deployment process if this was not the case. Can I control this?
+3
A:
A timestamp is going to be generated in the file, so you're never going to have complete, bit-for-bit, sameness.
jaws
2010-05-13 20:59:03
I 'd be interested to learn what metadata goes into the assembly by the linker; any references?
Jon
2010-05-13 21:04:11
Not on a regular unchanged source build.
eschneider
2010-05-13 21:26:52
You can use dumpbin to view the timestamp change.http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/vcgeneral/thread/a670fe8b-f64f-421b-aac0-91966f8f1858.
jaws
2010-05-13 21:37:10
+1
A:
It is probably versioning information in the assemblyinfo file that autoincrement at each build. If you set the version of the assembly manually there should be no difference
Falle1234
2010-05-13 21:00:37
A:
Are you doing a Build or a Re-Build?
With a Build the project will be skipped if the source is unchanged (even with auto-increment version *)
------ Build started: Project: ClassLibrary1, Configuration: Debug Any CPU ------
ClassLibrary1 -> C:\Users\schneider\AppData\Local\Temporary Projects\ClassLibrary1\bin\Debug\ClassLibrary1.dll
========== Build: 1 succeeded or up-to-date, 0 failed, 0 skipped ==========
With a Re-Build, everything is rebuilt.
eschneider
2010-05-13 21:08:05
A:
The output is going to be different, I don't think you can control that.
You could probably skip the compilation step for a particular project that didn't get changed and copy an earlier version instead. I wouldn;t recommend it, becuase that kind of defeats the purpose of having a build process. A lot of dev teams automatically have the build process increase the version number, even if there were no changes, just to indicate which build generated the dll.
I'm just curious why you want the output to be the same? Perhaps you're fixing a symptom rather than the cause. If you didn't expect any changes to the output, why start the build in the first place?
Mathieu Diepman
2010-05-13 21:24:17
yes, I understand that. What I don;t understand is why it is a problem when they do change?
Mathieu Diepman
2010-05-14 09:06:54