Displaying the build date

Question

I currently have an app displaying the build number in its title window. That's well and good except it means nothing to most of the users, who want to know if they have the latest build - they tend to refer to it as "last Thursday's" rather than build 1.0.8.4321.

The plan is to put the build date there instead - So "App built on 21/10/2009" for example.

I'm struggling to find a programmatic way to pull the build date out as a text string for use like this.

For the build number, I used:

Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version.ToString()

after defining how those came up.

I'd like something like that for the compile date (and time, for bonus points).

Pointers here much appreciated (excuse pun if appropriate), or neater solutions...

Answer 1

The new way

I changed my mind about this, and currently use this trick to get the correct build date.

#region Gets the build date and time (by reading the COFF header)

// http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms680313

struct _IMAGE_FILE_HEADER
{
    public ushort Machine;
    public ushort NumberOfSections;
    public uint TimeDateStamp;
    public uint PointerToSymbolTable;
    public uint NumberOfSymbols;
    public ushort SizeOfOptionalHeader;
    public ushort Characteristics;
};

static DateTime GetBuildDateTime(Assembly assembly)
{
    var path = assembly.GetName().CodeBase;
    if (File.Exists(path))
    {
        var buffer = new byte[Math.Max(Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(_IMAGE_FILE_HEADER)), 4)];
        using (var fileStream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
        {
            fileStream.Position = 0x3C;
            fileStream.Read(buffer, 0, 4);
            fileStream.Position = BitConverter.ToUInt32(buffer, 0); // COFF header offset
            fileStream.Read(buffer, 0, 4); // "PE\0\0"
            fileStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
        }
        var pinnedBuffer = GCHandle.Alloc(buffer, GCHandleType.Pinned);
        try
        {
            var coffHeader = (_IMAGE_FILE_HEADER)Marshal.PtrToStructure(pinnedBuffer.AddrOfPinnedObject(), typeof(_IMAGE_FILE_HEADER));

            return TimeZone.CurrentTimeZone.ToLocalTime(new DateTime(1970, 1, 1) + new TimeSpan(coffHeader.TimeDateStamp * TimeSpan.TicksPerSecond));
        }
        finally
        {
            pinnedBuffer.Free();
        }
    }
    return new DateTime();
}

#endregion

The old way

Well, how do you generate build numbers? Visual Studio (or the C# compiler) actually provides automatic build and revision numbers if you change the AssemblyVersion attribute to e.g. 1.0.*

What will happen is that is that the build will be equal to the number of days since January 1, 2000 local time, and for revision to be equal to the number of seconds since midnight local time, divided by 2.

see Community Content, Automatic Build and Revision numbers

e.g. AssemblyInfo.cs

[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.*")] // important: use wildcard for build and revision numbers!

SampleCode.cs

var version = Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().GetName().Version;
var buildDateTime = new DateTime(2000, 1, 1).Add(new TimeSpan(
TimeSpan.TicksPerDay * version.Build + // days since 1 January 2000
TimeSpan.TicksPerSecond * 2 * version.Revision)); // seconds since midnight, (multiply by 2 to get original)

Answer 2

You could use a project post-build event to write a text file to your target directory with the current datetime. You could then read the value at run-time. It's a little hacky, but it should work.

Answer 3

You can use this project: https://github.com/dwcullop/BuildInfo

It leverages T4 to automate the build date timestamp. There are several versions (different branches) including one that gives you the Git Hash of the currently checked out branch, if you're into that sort of thing.

Disclosure: I wrote the module.

Answer 4

Lots of great answers here but I feel like I can add my own because of simplicity, performance (comparing to resource-related solutions) cross platform (works with Net Core too) and avoidance of any 3rd party tool. Just add this msbuild target to the csproj.

<Target Name="Date" BeforeTargets="CoreCompile">
    <WriteLinesToFile File="$(IntermediateOutputPath)gen.cs" Lines="static partial class Builtin { public static long CompileTime = $([System.DateTime]::UtcNow.Ticks) %3B }" Overwrite="true" />
    <ItemGroup>
        <Compile Include="$(IntermediateOutputPath)gen.cs" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Target>

and now you have Builtin.CompileTime or new DateTime(Builtin.CompileTime, DateTimeKind.Utc) if you need it that way.

ReSharper is not gonna like it. You can ignore him or add a partial class to the project too but it works anyway.

Answer 5

A different, PCL-friendly approach would be to use an MSBuild inline task to substitute the build time into a string that is returned by a property on the app. We are using this approach successfully in an app that has Xamarin.Forms, Xamarin.Android, and Xamarin.iOS projects.

EDIT:

Simplified by moving all of the logic into the SetBuildDate.targets file, and using Regex instead of simple string replace so that the file can be modified by each build without a "reset".

The MSBuild inline task definition (saved in a SetBuildDate.targets file local to the Xamarin.Forms project for this example):

<Project xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003' ToolsVersion="12.0">

  <UsingTask TaskName="SetBuildDate" TaskFactory="CodeTaskFactory" 
    AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.Build.Tasks.v12.0.dll">
    <ParameterGroup>
      <FilePath ParameterType="System.String" Required="true" />
    </ParameterGroup>
    <Task>
      <Code Type="Fragment" Language="cs"><![CDATA[

        DateTime now = DateTime.UtcNow;
        string buildDate = now.ToString("F");
        string replacement = string.Format("BuildDate => \"{0}\"", buildDate);
        string pattern = @"BuildDate => ""([^""]*)""";
        string content = File.ReadAllText(FilePath);
        System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex rgx = new System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex(pattern);
        content = rgx.Replace(content, replacement);
        File.WriteAllText(FilePath, content);
        File.SetLastWriteTimeUtc(FilePath, now);

   ]]></Code>
    </Task>
  </UsingTask>

</Project>

Invoking the above inline task in the Xamarin.Forms csproj file in target BeforeBuild:

  <!-- To modify your build process, add your task inside one of the targets below and uncomment it. 
       Other similar extension points exist, see Microsoft.Common.targets.  -->
  <Import Project="SetBuildDate.targets" />
  <Target Name="BeforeBuild">
    <SetBuildDate FilePath="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\BuildMetadata.cs" />
  </Target>

The FilePath property is set to a BuildMetadata.cs file in the Xamarin.Forms project that contains a simple class with a string property BuildDate, into which the build time will be substituted:

public class BuildMetadata
{
    public static string BuildDate => "This can be any arbitrary string";
}

Add this file BuildMetadata.cs to project. It will be modified by every build, but in a manner that allows repeated builds (repeated replacements), so you may include or omit it in source control as desired.

Answer 6

Add below to pre-build event command line:

echo %date% %time% > "$(ProjectDir)\Resources\BuildDate.txt"

Add this file as resource, now you have 'BuildDate' string in your resources.

After inserting the file into the Resource (as public text file), I accessed it via

string strCompTime = Properties.Resources.BuildDate;

To create resources, see How to create and use resources in .NET.