How can I get the assembly file version

Question

In AssemblyInfo there are two assembly versions:

1. AssemblyVersion: Specify the version of the assembly being attributed.
2. AssemblyFileVersion: Instructs a compiler to use a specific version number for the Win32 file version resource. The Win32 file version is not required to be the same as the assembly's version number.

I can get the Assembly Version with the following line of code:

Version version = Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().GetName().Version;

But how can I get the Assembly File Version?

Solution 1

See my comment above asking for clarification on what you really want. Hopefully this is it:

System.Reflection.Assembly assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo fvi = System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(assembly.Location);
string version = fvi.FileVersion;

Solution 2

There are three versions: assembly, file, and product. They are used by different features and take on different default values if you don't explicit specify them.

string assemblyVersion = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version.ToString(); 
string assemblyVersion = Assembly.LoadFile("your assembly file").GetName().Version.ToString(); 
string fileVersion = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location).FileVersion; 
string productVersion = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location).ProductVersion;

Solution 3

When I want to access the application file version (what is set in Assembly Information -> File version), say to set a label's text to it on form load to display the version, I have just used

versionlabel.Text = "Version " + Application.ProductVersion;

This approach requires a reference to System.Windows.Forms.

Solution 4

UPDATE: As mentioned by Richard Grimes in my cited post, @Iain and @Dmitry Lobanov, my answer is right in theory but wrong in practice.

As I should have remembered from countless books, etc., while one sets these properties using the [assembly: XXXAttribute], they get highjacked by the compiler and placed into the VERSIONINFO resource.

For the above reason, you need to use the approach in @Xiaofu's answer as the attributes are stripped after the signal has been extracted from them.

---

public static string GetProductVersion()
{
  var attribute = (AssemblyVersionAttribute)Assembly
    .GetExecutingAssembly()
    .GetCustomAttributes( typeof(AssemblyVersionAttribute), true )
    .Single();
   return attribute.InformationalVersion;
}

(From http://bytes.com/groups/net/420417-assemblyversionattribute - as noted there, if you're looking for a different attribute, substitute that into the above)

Solution 5

Use this:

((AssemblyFileVersionAttribute)Attribute.GetCustomAttribute(
    Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(), 
    typeof(AssemblyFileVersionAttribute), false)
).Version;

Or this:

new Version(System.Windows.Forms.Application.ProductVersion);

View more solutions

Comments

[Xiaofu]

What do you mean by "assembly file version" as opposed to "assembly version"? Can you give an example?

[rory.ap]

@Xiaofu -- "Assembly Version" is what .NET uses internally. "Assembly File Version" is what shows when you right-click on a file and go to "properties" then the "details" tab. They are not the same.

[Kyle Delaney]

I've found that the assembly version is what's used when determining the user.config location in AppData.

[Iain]

Hey Ruben, 2 notes. First, the question asked for AssemblyFileVersion not AssemblyVersion. Second, Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetCustomAttributes( typeof(AssemblyVersionAttribute), true ) returns an array of length 0. I think this is because AssemblyVersionAttribute is not a custom attribute.

[Raymond]

Re the first point, thats why I said "if you're lookign for a different attribute, substitute that into the above" (IIRC I didnt try it out). Re the second, that does seem plausible but dont have time to dig in...

[Markus]

@Xiaofu: Is there any way to get the version numbers from a AssemblyInfo.cs file instead?

[Doguhan Uluca]

One problem with this code is that, it'll actually return 1.0.*.* if you haven't specified Build and Revision numbers. AssemblyName.GetAssemblyName(assembly.Location).Version.ToSt‌​ring(); will get you the 'compiled' version number - which should be the same as FileVersion, if you're setting both versions the same way.

[Dmitrii Lobanov]

Yeah, you actually can't get AssemblyVersion attribute via .GetCustomAttribute(), assembly version can be retrieved via AssemblyName.Version property only. But with every other attribute it's the right way to do it

[Raymond]

@DmitryLobanov and Iain Thanks for the prompts. I hope the edit covers it sufficiently to make the answer worth keeping instead of deleting - let me know!

[BradleyDotNET]

Note that this requires a reference to System.Windows.Forms, and so might not be suitable for all applications.

[JMD]

For when that blog post disappears some day, here it is boiled down for reference: string assemblyVersion = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version.ToString()‌​; string assemblyVersion = Assembly.LoadFile('your assembly file').GetName().Version.ToString(); string fileVersion = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly‌​().Location).FileVer‌​sion; string productVersion = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly‌​().Location).Product‌​Version;

[Nyerguds]

Unfortunately, that's a string. Not ideal if you want to format it yourself to a more simple "v1.08" kind of format. Much handier if you actually get the version object to get the sub-components from as integers.

[Nyerguds]

Nice, but I much rather use the FileMajorPart / FileMinorPart / FileBuildPart / FilePrivatePart properties to get the integers rather than the preformatted FileVersion string. No one likes to see the "1.9.0.0" kind of thing in the title bar of a program.

[Nyerguds]

@DoguhanUluca They're two different things. That'll give you the assembly version, not the file version. "If you're setting both versions the same way" is a workaround, not a solution.

[Jesse Chisholm]

And for those wanting to specify these in the AssemblyInfo.cs file, for assemblyVersion use (with whatever numbers you want) === [assembly: AssemblyVersion("2.0.*")] for fileVersion use === [assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("2.0.*")] and for productVersion use === [assembly: AssemblyInformationalVersion("2.0.*")] The last one may take string suffix for SemVer compatibility:[assembly: AssemblyInformationalVersion("2.0.0-alpha")]

[Jesse Chisholm]

Addendum: AssemblyFileVersion may not use the * suffix notation. :( It needs all four numbers. [assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("2.0.0.1")]

[dario_ramos]

Also, this picks up AssemblyFileVersion from AssemblyInfo, not AssemblyVersion, so watch out

[jrh]

Could a high rep user edit this answer to make it more clear that this is for Windows Forms only?

[Kyle Delaney]

Does FileVersionInfo only have string properties and no Version properties?

[huseyin tugrul buyukisik]

This is good. I'm using it in a winforms project and it is working.

[Yitzchak]

Why do you use Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()? That returns the current dll, but if I want the main executable I'll call: Assembly.GetEntryAssembly()

[quetzalcoatl]

@Yitzchak: Assembly.GetEntryAssembly() returns NULL for example in context of Office Add-ins, and also in many other cases. Also, if you think about addins/plugins - EntryAssembly is the host application, and most often you want the version of YourCode(TM) :) Aside from that, it's worth adding to this answer that assembly.Location used in the answer can be null as well (i.e. first random case googled out: github.com/Azure/azure-functions-host/issues/1233) and that probably happens even more often than having null entry-assembly.

[David Refoua]

This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks for the answer!

[Vasya Milovidov]

I used AssemblyInformationalVersionAttribute instead of AssemblyVersionAttribute on .net core 3.1

[Momoro]

Is there a way to set the file version, instead of just getting it?

[AH.]

Not working. Just returns the AssemblyVersion.

[jebbie]

wow, unbelievable how hard this is in c#.. in electron i just execute "appVersion: app.getVersion()"... yiiiikes... 🤮