change version number at build time

Question

I need to set the version of my delphi project to be the same as another project (not delphi) as part of a build script. Is there a way to control the version number without going thru the IDE, for example command line param of the compiler or something like that? Thanks

Answer 1

Marjan gives an excellent answer above, but my answer takes the answer a little further. Consider this RC file:

VS_VERSION_INFO VERSIONINFO

#include "..\Ver_Num_Application.txt"
#define APPLICATION_NAME    "My amazing project\0"
#define VER_NUM_ARTWORKS    4
#include "..\Libraries\Paslib32\Ver_Num_Library.txt"
#define COMPANY_NAME        "My company\0"

FILEVERSION    VER_NUM_ARTWORKS, VER_NUM_LIBRARY, VER_NUM_APPLICATION, 1000
 FILEFLAGSMASK 0x3fL
#ifdef _DEBUG
 FILEFLAGS 0x9L
#else
 FILEFLAGS 0x8L
#endif
 FILEOS 0x4L
 FILETYPE 0x1L
 FILESUBTYPE 0x0L
BEGIN
    BLOCK "StringFileInfo"
    BEGIN
        BLOCK "040904b0"
        BEGIN
            VALUE "CompanyName", COMPANY_NAME
            VALUE "FileDescription", APPLICATION_NAME
            VALUE "LegalCopyright", "Copyright (C) "COMPANY_NAME
            VALUE "ProductName", APPLICATION_NAME
        END
    END 
    BLOCK "VarFileInfo" 
    BEGIN 
        VALUE "Translation", 0x409, 1200
    END 
END

The benefit in using the several #INCLUDE statements is that you can leave the RC file alone and then simply modify (or even auto-generate) the *.txt include files which look like:

Ver_Num_Application.txt:
  #define VER_NUM_APPLICATION 6

Ver_Num_Library.txt:
  #define VER_NUM_LIBRARY 156

Note that now you have to delete the *.res files before running your build to force the linker to regenerate them from (possibly changed) version numbers.

Answer 2

Include a line like

{$R 'version.res'}

in your project. And create a version.rc file with your version information. You will have to build the resource yourself in older Delphi versions using brcc32. In newer Delphi versions you can use

{$R 'version.res' 'version.rc'}

to have the IDE build it automatically for you.

The simplest version.rc would look something like:

1 VERSIONINFO
FILEVERSION 9999, 9999, 99, 18048
PRODUCTVERSION 9999, 9999, 99, 18048
FILEOS 0x00000004L // comment: VOS_WINDOWS32
FILETYPE VFT_APP
{
 BLOCK "VarFileInfo"
 {
  VALUE "Translation", 0x409, 0x4E4 // comment: 0x4E4 = 1252
 }

 BLOCK "StringFileInfo"
 {
  BLOCK "040904E4"
  {
   VALUE "CompanyName", "Company Name\0"
   VALUE "FileVersion", "9999.9999.99.18048\0"
   VALUE "LegalCopyright", "Copyright \0"
   VALUE "ProductName", "Product Name\0"
   VALUE "ProductVersion", "9999.9999.99.18048\0"
   VALUE "Homepage", "http://www.mydomain.com\0"
  }
 }
}

For more information, please refer to MSDN on the VERSIONINFO structure.