VisualStudio: translating a build version to a calendar date

Question

I know that the version string generated by Visual Studio is based on the date/time of when the build was run. Given the partial version string "3856.24352" generated by Visual Studio, how can I translate that to the calendar day on which that build took place?

Answer 1

The full version string is in the format major.minor.build.revision. The build part is the number of days since 1^st January, 2000. The revision part is the number of seconds since midnight divided by 2 (see here for more info).

Assuming that your version strings are the auto-incrementing type, and that you have taken the build.revision part, you can turn it back into the date using:

string buildRevision = "3856.24352";

string[] parts = buildRevision.Split('.');
int build = int.Parse(parts[0]);
int revision = int.Parse(parts[1]);

DateTime dateTimeOfBuild = new DateTime(2000, 1, 1) 
                                + new TimeSpan(build, 0, 0, 0) 
                                + TimeSpan.FromSeconds(revision * 2);

This will give you a DateTime representing when the build was produced (which for your example is 23^rd July, 2010 at 13:31:44).