Hello,
I recently pickup Java so I have very limited knowledge, but I would like to know if it's possible to get DLL version using Java. If it is not possible, is it possible to use C# to get Jar version through the manifest file?
+1
A:
It's certainly possible in each case - you just need to write code to read the appropriate file format.
I suspect it's vastly simpler to find the manifest in a jar file from C# than the assembly version from Java though - it's just a case of loading a zip file and finding the META-INF/MANIFEST.MF file. Reading the file is easy, as it's plain text.
Depending on exactly what you mean by the version of a DLL, you may need to do all manner of things - if you're talking about .NET assembly attributes, I don't know whether they're placed in some easily-fetchable place; my experience of parsing Portable Executable (PE) files is that it's slightly tricky unless you've got library support. Of course if you can find a Java library which knows the format already, it may become trivial...
Jon Skeet
2009-08-06 22:25:50
I find worthy to mention that not all the JARs have the version number in its MANIFEST.MF
victor hugo
2009-08-06 22:27:07
Very glad to hear that it can be done because I've searched on google but couldn't find anything. I can apply the same approach in C# like reading from a text file to read the manifest, but wouldn't I need to unzip the Jar file first before I can read manifest?
Bopha
2009-08-06 22:29:21
But so far that Jar files that I have been working with, they all have manifest, so that case I won't worry.
Bopha
2009-08-06 22:30:19
Thanks Jon Skeet, I think I will use C# instead to extract the Jar file version since you meantioned it's more simpler.
Bopha
2009-08-06 22:38:46
You don't need to unzip them to the file system - use something like SharpZipLib to read through until you get the entry you want, then read the contents into memory.
Jon Skeet
2009-08-06 22:39:22
Thanks for the tips, I will search more on SharpZipLib.
Bopha
2009-08-06 22:44:50
Thank you for pointing me to this useful library. It works wonderful.
Bopha
2009-08-07 23:12:19
Hi Jon, Is there a way to read Windows DLL's version using Java?
Chandan .
2009-08-19 12:22:17
@ChanLFC: As I said in the answer, you'd have to find a library which understands the PE format... or write one yourself.
Jon Skeet
2009-08-19 12:35:04