Play Framework 2: Read the application version def

Question

I use the Play Framework 2.0 (2.0.3). I have a Java project and want to read the application version (appVersion) defined in Build.scala.

What I already saw is that it's possible to read certain configuration details from the Application object provided to Global.java, but didn't find a key called appVersion or similar.

Answer 1

This is how you can get Play application version and application name defined in your build.sbt

name := "myApp"
version :="1.0.4" 

Notice this only works in PROD mode. In dev mode SBT shares a JVM instance with the application and those calls return something different.

Application.class.getPackage().getImplementationTitle());     // returns "myApp"
Application.class.getPackage().getImplementationVersion());    // returns "1.0.4"

In this case Application class is a class defined in your project. It can be any class from your project.

UPDATE

I noticed that this method doesn't work out of the box for Play >=2.4.x

To fix the problem add this to your build.sbt

packageOptions += Package.ManifestAttributes(
  "Implementation-Version" -> (version in ThisBuild).value,
  "Implementation-Title" -> name.value
)

The two properties will be appended to MANIFEST.FM file in your build so the package title and version can be read from the code.

fyi: I use SBT native packager

addSbtPlugin("com.typesafe.sbt" % "sbt-native-packager" % "1.0.3")

Answer 2

You can get the current version of Play by using:

play.core.PlayVersion.current();

Answer 3

You can define the version in application.conf and let Build.scala read the value. I did this with the version number and application name. The following works in Play 2.0, there is an updated solution for Play 2.1.

In project/Build.scala, load the configuration and get the properties:

val conf = play.api.Configuration.load(new File("."))
val appName    = conf.getString("app.name").getOrElse("unnamed application")
val appVersion = conf.getString("app.version").getOrElse("0.0.0")

In conf/application.conf define the properties:

app.version = 1.0
app.name = My Application

Finally in your application it will be accessible with

 Play.application().configuration().getString("app.version")

---

The configuration syntax has quite some features, so you can even go a little more crazy with your version or application names:

app {
  major    = 1
  minor    = 2
  revision = 3
  version = ${app.major}.${app.minor}.${app.revision}
  name = My Application ${app.major}.${app.minor}
}

Answer 4

I use the SBT BuildInfo plugin for this purpose:

import sbtbuildinfo.Plugin._

val main = PlayProject(appName, appVersion, appDependencies, mainLang = SCALA, settings = Defaults.defaultSettings ++ buildInfoSettings).settings(

  buildInfoKeys := Seq[Scoped](name, appVersion, scalaVersion, sbtVersion),
  buildInfoPackage := "org.foo.bar",

  ...

)

This generates an org.foo.bar.BuildInfo object which you can then call from the source code:

org.foo.bar.BuildInfo.version

You can also define custom keys in the build and add them to the buildInfoKeys, which is quite useful if your build gets more complex.