Pre-build MSBuild task to update AssemblyInfo not in sync with built exe

Question

I am using a pre-build task in Visual Studio 2008 that invokes msbuild:

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\MSBuild.exe $(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\version.targets /p:Configuration=$(ConfigurationName)

Inside version.targets, I am updating the AssemblyInfo.cs file to replace version information:

   <FileUpdate
     Encoding="ASCII"
     Files="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs"
     Regex="AssemblyInformationalVersion\(&quot;.*&quot;\)\]" 
     ReplacementText="AssemblyInformationalVersion(&quot;Product $(ConfigurationString) ($(buildDate))&quot;)]"
    />

When I build the project through Visual Studio 2008, it builds without any problems.

But when I look at the resulting exe's version information, it contains the previous time stamp even though the AssemblyInfo.cs has been changed with the "correct" one.

It seems that the pre-build's changes aren't seen by the main compilation task and it's always one behind.

Any ideas of what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

Here are some of my desperate attempts at fixing this:

1. Moving the MSBuild task to inside the .csproj in the section "BeforeBuild" target does nothing.

2. Putting a long sleep event in after the FileUpdate does nothing.

3. Writing my own program to manually update the AssemblyInfo does nothing; again, it's updated, but the resulting assembly has the previous information in it.

I suppose I am not grasping what the pre-build event really does.

Answer 2

I don't think you are doing anything wrong - it's a bug.

I have reported it here - check if you can reproduce it and add a validation, maybe we can get it fixed by MS.

EDIT: I tried the suggestion by "Si" to update the file in the "BeforeBuild" event - however I still get the same wrong result with Visual Studio 2008/SP1.

UPDATE/WORKAROUND: MS has responded to the bug report. As a workaround you can add

<UseHostCompilerIfAvailable>FALSE</UseHostCompilerIfAvailable>

to your csproj file.

Answer 3

Interesting, I wrote my own custom task which is hooked into BeforeBuild and this is working fine. Never had a problem from VS or MSBuild via command line. So I would say explore BeforeBuild some more...

I know because we use our build server (CruiseControl.NET) build number as the "Build" part of the version, which is built into all assemblies (we share the same AssemblyInfo.cs for AssemblyVersion and AssemblyFileVersion across assemblies in the solution) and this is then pushed (via FileUpdate task) to a variable in our WiX project and also used to label the MSI file name.

<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
  <CallTarget Targets="UpdateAssemblyInfo" />
</Target>

<Target Name="UpdateAssemblyInfo" Condition="'$(CIBuildNumber)' != ''">
  <UpdateVersion Attribute="AssemblyFileVersion"
    AssemblyInfo=".\Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs" 
    BuildNumber="$(CIBuildNumber)" />
</Target>

If you do some googling you should find other examples...sorry I can't give you the UpdateVersion code, i'd need permission from my work, but if you can't find anything suitable on the net, custom tasks are easy to write and the above should help.

Answer 4

+1 for the <UseHostCompilerIfAvailable>FALSE</UseHostCompilerIfAvailable> trick, although neither the accepted solution nor the linked article specified that the line should be added to the first <PropertyGroup> element in the .csproj file.

It is also a problem with Visual Studio only, as invoking msbuild from the command-line on the same .csproj file (without the trick) will see the generated code files compiled right away (and not the previous versions).

Also, I would like to recommend that this topic be tagged with the following, as I had to dig a lot to find it:

1. VisualStudio
2. compiler
3. BeforeBuild
4. generated
5. .NET
6. c#