Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

Why are build numbers limited to 65535?

MSBuild Team Blog — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:47:21 GMT

In my previous post I explained how to fix the issue with the default date format provided in the AssemblyVersionTask.

How To: Update Assembly Version Numbers with MSBuild

MSBuild Team Blog — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:10:17 GMT

UPDATE: For information on the "Y7K" or "2007" issue, see our new blog entry . One of our most frequently

How to deal with the Y2K7 problem -- file versions and AssemblyInfoTask

Buck Hodges — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 04:44:01 GMT

If you use the AssemblyInfoTask to stamp the version numbers for your assemblies that you build with

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

Jonathan Reyes — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 07:59:16 GMT

Great fix.

I do have a suggestion. I think its better to use MMddyy than 01MMdd.

But still thanks for the great fix.

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

Greg — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 22:16:05 GMT

Are none of you old enough to remember the old days, where storage was expensive enough that cutting one byte out of each record in a file could be a huge savings?

I changed my version to use yyddd, where the first two digits are the year, and the last three digits are the day of the year, 1-365(366). You can guess at the number -- 32 is February 1st, July 1st is just over 180, etc. -- or you can figure it out easily enough if you need to know what day of the year 246 is.

And yes, some people have pointed out that I've just replaced the Y2K7 problem with the Y2K66 problem, but I hope I'll be retired by then.

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

Steve — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:28:58 GMT

Greg - your julian dateformat string doesn't work. When I use yyddd it throws and exception trying to parse it, most likely because ddd means "short name of day" as in "Mon". Is this solution actually working for you? If so, what other mods did you make to get it going?

Thanks.

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

VIO — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:02:05 GMT

What if, we use the following format - "YYWKDY" where WK represents the week of year (max 2 digits) and DY represents the day of week (max 1 digit).

E.g. for 02/23/2007 will have 07086 which is year 2007, week 08 and day 6 of week.

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

JZ — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 03:50:33 GMT

I followed VIO response of using YYWDDY using ISO date formats. I get the error: "Input string was not in a correct format. Failed to increment Build Number!" So, for example my value is 07133 which when converted to a long is 7133 for my build number. Anyone know how to fix the error?

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

RJS — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 23:14:23 GMT

seems to me that the best way around this one is allowing a value to exceed UInt16 - maybe a 32 would have been more appropriate.

The person that decided to use the date for their buildnumber is going "doh!" about now....

Of course the one that decided the version numbers should be limited to an UInt16 never dreamed of a date value being used.

granted, the yyddd idea isn't bad- but the year is still the clincher-

so- put the day first... 36599 - would keep you below 65535 (until you tried to squeeze a 4 digit year in).

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

Chris Eldredge — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 03:28:05 GMT

I guess I'm the only person that actually injects a serial build number from an integration server into my assembly versions. Good thing my projects are only a year old and the build number is in the 4,000s.

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

Steve — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 06:22:24 GMT

What am I missing? I am still getting the error: Error 11 Error emitting 'System.Reflection.AssemblyVersionAttribute' attribute -- 'The version specified '1.0.71210.8' is invalid' AssemblyInfo\Debug\AssemblyInfo.cs

I made the following mod:

<AssemblyBuildNumberType>DateString</AssemblyBuildNumberType>

<AssemblyBuildNumberFormat>MMddyy</AssemblyBuildNumberFormat>

<AssemblyRevisionType>AutoIncrement</AssemblyRevisionType>

</PropertyGroup>

<AssemblyFileBuildNumberType>DateString</AssemblyFileBuildNumberType>

<AssemblyFileBuildNumberFormat>MMddyy</AssemblyFileBuildNumberFormat>

<AssemblyFileRevisionType>AutoIncrement</AssemblyFileRevisionType>

</PropertyGroup>

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

อภิรมย์ กริ่มใจ — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:42:22 GMT

99/28 ม.อยู่สบาย ข.สะพานสูง ถ.กรุงเทพกรีฑา กรุงเทพๆ

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

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กรุงเทพๆ 10400

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

Denis — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 01:56:12 GMT

I have found another workaround-Versioning that could work in my eyes: Use the year as Build-Number and Month/Day as Revision.

If you really publish something you won't likely have more than one release each day, right?

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

Jason — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:17:22 GMT

@Denis

If you have an automated build process and you check in each change into source control and go on to add a new change, a build would be generated after each check in. So yes, you could likely have more than one "release" in a day.

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

Randar Puust — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 22:33:09 GMT

Since everyone seems to have a solution, we are going to try the following:

Major.Minor.YYMM.DDBuildNumber

So you would have:

-5.0.0801.220 is Version 5, built on Jan 22nd, 2008.

-5.0.0801.2211 is Version 5, built on Jan 22nd, 2008, 11th build of the day.

-5.1.200801.010 is Version 5.1, built on Jan 1st, 2008.

It's a bit cryptic, but at least it fits within the bounds unless you have an insane number of builds.

How to AutoIncrement version with each build using Team Foundation Server build (with a little help from AssemblyInfoTask)

Nikhil Singhal's Blog — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:41:52 GMT

One common requirement with any decent sized multi-version product is to automatically update the version

Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

Vincent Yang — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 10:49:10 GMT

Ref:http://blogs.msdn.com/msbuild/archive/2007/01/03/fixing-invalid-version-number-problems-with-th...

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

Angela Gerber — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:53:24 GMT

Replacing the assembly version with this.. solved the error for me.....

[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.*")]

re: Fixing invalid version number problems with the AssemblyInfoTask

Christian — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:32:20 GMT

Which is a right DateString Format?

There is still the Error:

The specified string is not a valid version number

<AssemblyBuildNumberType>DateString</AssemblyBuildNumberType>

<AssemblyBuildNumberFormat>yyDDmm</AssemblyBuildNumberFormat>

<AssemblyRevisionType>AutoIncrement</AssemblyRevisionType>

</PropertyGroup>

<AssemblyFileBuildNumberType>DateString</AssemblyFileBuildNumberType>

<AssemblyFileBuildNumberFormat>yyDDmm</AssemblyFileBuildNumberFormat>

<AssemblyFileRevisionType>AutoIncrement</AssemblyFileRevisionType>

</PropertyGroup>