Log4NET setting overwritten by AssemblyInfo Task

Question

I have a project that uses log4net and works fine on the developer machines. When we build, a step in our build scripts calls the AssemblyInfo task to set version numbers and dates, etc. But the AssemblyInfo file also loses the line:

[assembly: XmlConfigurator(Watch = true)]

Is there any way to have the AssemblyInfo task not overwrite that line, or conversely, to have the AssemblyInfo task re-insert that line into the file (along with the appropriate using statement?

Answer 1

Well, thinking a little differently, you don't have to have only one assembly info file.

This is how we do it for a solution, each project has 3 assembly info files:

1. AssemblyInfo.cs - Contains Guid, AssemblyTitle, AssemblyDescription, and any assembly specific attributes.

2. ProductAssemblyInfo.cs - Contains AssemblyProduct, AssemblyVersion and AssemblyFileVersion. This way all assemblies in a product/solution share the same version.

3. CompanyAssemblyInfo.cs - Contains AssemblyCompany, AssemblyCopyright, and any attributes we want all our assemblies to share.

Items 2 and 3 are referenced using "Add as link", this way they are shared from the single source code. Now, you may not want to adopt the same approach, but you could certainly use a similar structure and place your XmlConfigurator in a separate assembly info file from your assembly version details.

Answer 2

You can actually put the log4net [assembly: ...] line in any file that will be compiled into the assembly. A lot of times, we just put it in the .cs file that has the "main" method, and it works just fine.