VersionTools

This project contains a .Net console application which helps managing the versions of .Net projects. It uses a set of common conventions and semantic versioning.

It was started because we wanted a more fine grained control over how TeamCity versioned assemblies.

The most likely use case is to run the tool as a step in your continuous intergration pipeline after the code is cloned but before the project is built. The versions are set by patching AssemblyInfo and nuspec files.

Getting started

Download the latest version from Releases or clone the repo and build it locally. You might want to add the location of the executable to your PATH if you are putting it on a CI server.

The program is called aver.exe. Type aver help at the console to get a list of the various actions and options supported.

Conventions

Root version

The root version is the default version that is used when no other version is defined for a project. The root version is set by either passing a valid semantic version as an argument using the -version option or by putting a version.txt file in the starting directory.

version.txt files

Versions are defined by putting a file named version.txt in a directory. In a recursive scan of a solution, versions are inherited by sub directories.

The version.txt file format is simple: the first line of the file must be a valid semantic version. Any other lines are skipped. Example:

1.2.3-rc3

E.g. if a version.txt file is put in the root directory of this example, the root version of the solution will be 1.0.0. Project1 will have version 2.0.0 and Project2 will inherit the root version since it does not have a version.txt file.

[sln]
|- version.txt (1.0.0)
|- [Project1]
   |- version.txt (2.0.0)
|- [Project2]

Usage

The application uses the common pattern of actions and option like e.g. git

> aver <action> [options]

Getting help

To get a list of the available actions and options type

> aver help

Getting a list of versions in a solution

The list action lets you list the versions of the project in a directory or a directory structure.

> aver list c:\projects\myapp -recurse
VersionTools.Cli
  Location:           c:\projects\myapp
  Resolved version:   1.0.1-beta
...

Lists the resolved versions of the projects found in a recursive search in the c:\projects\myapp directory.

Getting a list of .Net assembly versions

You can also list the versions of assemblies in a directory or directoy structure by adding the -assembly option.

> aver list c:\projects\myapp -assembly -recurse
aver
  Location:           c:\projects\myapp\bin\debug
  Assembly version:   1.0.1.0
  File version:       1.0.1.0
  Product version:    1.0.1-beta
...

Lists the versions of assemblies in the c:\projects\myapp directory.