However, the article didnt actually contain anything of any interest. And the referers didn’t show how those people got to my blog. Today, I noticed that there are still visitors looking for Brian (did you notice, that I had a typo in the headline?). This time I got curious. Where did those people come from anyway. So I had a closer look into the stats.

And guess what: From Redmond. Microsoft Corp.

This is so typical. I post really interesting stuff about how to quit Microsoft Windows Live OneCare, why Microsoft Windows 7 will kick ass, the all new Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2008 Branching Guide 2.0, how to generate Release Notes with Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2008 Team Build and automate the incrementing of Assembly version numbers (thanks again, Chris!). And they come for looking at a youtube video about Brian the Build Bunny.

Time to get one and do something with it, they really find interesting.

Since I can safely assume, that you guys from Microsoft still visit my blog for Brian, could you please add comments about why and where you got the link from?

So this is what this article is about: Imagine you were doing nightly builds of your software. Sure enough you wouldn’t want to touch every AssemblyInfo.cs or .vb every day only for manually incrementing the version number. The Assembly version number basically looks like this:

MajorVersion.MinorVersion.BuildNumber.Revision.

What you want to achieve is that you can see the Assembly version in the file properties in explorer so that you know which release build it refers to.

To know which release build the Assembly refers to, you need the buildnumber Team Build assigned to the release. The naming convention looks like this: Buildname + Date + Revision. So if you built your FooBar application today already the third time, its buildnumber would be FooBar_20090128.3. Easy, huh?

While FooBar’s sources are labled with that buildnumber, the Assembly properties are not altered.

The settings you would want Team Build to alter are these:

// Version information for an assembly consists of the following four values:
//
// Major Version
// Minor Version
// Build Number
// Revision
//
// You can specify all the values or you can default the Revision and Build Numbers
// by using the ‘*’ as shown below:
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.0.0")]
[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("1.0.0.0")]

Before I go into details about what Chris did to get things working, let me add the following:

My project consists of several solutions. I have libraries for example that are shared amongst several projects. This is why I only wanted to have build definitions that contained the main project and the referenced libraries. However, for automatically checking out and back in the AssemblyInfo files while editing them at build time, Chris uses the /recursive argument to recursively go through all subdirectories and touch all AssemblyInfo files. When having more than one workspace in your build definition that explicitly copy only specific projects to Team Builds’ local workspace, that does not work.

However, he also shows how to create a list of all AssemblyInfo files within the folder structure. And I changed his TFS tasks so that instead of the recursive argument the list generated earlier is used. That works like a charm!

And this is how you extend the build process to let Team Build automatically set the version information:

 1. Download and install AssemblyInfoTask

You need to get this custom build task. Chris references the original source at gotdotnet.com which does not exist anymore. Either search for the text AssemblyInfoTaskvers with google or try this link. It should redirect you to the download area on MSDN where you can get the lates setup release.

2. Import the task into your build project

Open Source Control in Visual Studio and make sure you have a local copy of the build project in your workspace. Then check out the TFSBuild.proj file (Unchanged, keep any existing lock) and open it. Add the following line right after the import of Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets: 

3. Use a custom task for retrieving the revision number

Each buildnumber contains a revision: FooBar_20090128.3 What we want to do is using this revision number also as revision in our Assembly version. So we need to implement a custom build task that is able to extract the revision number from the buildnumber so that we can assign it to the Assemblys’ revision number. At the end of this article, I will post the sources you will need.

Right after the import statement from above, register this custom build task by adding the following line: 

 4. Add a property group for setting the assembly information

To configure all assembly properties and format the number formats respectively, add the following lines to your project file:

5. Set the revision number

By altering the target CheckSettingsForEndToEndIteration, you can use the custom build task you have yet to implement for extracting the revision number from the buildnumber and add it to the assembly version:

  <!– Use the ExtractRevionTask to get the RevionNumber out of the BuildNumber.

       Update the AssemblyInfoTask Properties with the result BuildRevision. –>

  <Target Name=“CheckSettingsForEndToEndIteration“>

    <!–for 2008 use the GetBuildProperties Task to get the BuildNumber –>

    <GetBuildProperties TeamFoundationServerUrl=“$(TeamFoundationServerUrl)“ BuildUri=“$(BuildUri)“>

      <Output TaskParameter=“BuildNumber“ PropertyName=“BuildNumber“></Output>

    </GetBuildProperties>

    <!–  extract the BuildRevision –>

    <ExtractRevisionTask BuildNumber=“$(BuildNumber)“>

      <Output TaskParameter=“BuildRevision“ PropertyName=“BuildRevision“ />

    </ExtractRevisionTask>

    <!–  update the AssemblyInfo Props –>

    <CreateProperty Value=“$(BuildRevision)“>

      <Output TaskParameter=“Value“ PropertyName=“AssemblyRevision“/>

    </CreateProperty>

    <CreateProperty Value=“$(BuildRevision)“>

      <Output TaskParameter=“Value“ PropertyName=“AssemblyFileRevision“/>

    </CreateProperty>

    <!–  just needed if you populate the AssemblyDescription  too like in the sample  –>

    <CreateProperty Value=“$(BuildNumber)“>

      <Output TaskParameter=“Value“ PropertyName=“AssemblyDescription“/>

    </CreateProperty>

  </Target>

6. Check out and back in all AssemblyInfo.[cs|vb] files from your workspaces

Before you can alter the AssemblyInfo files, you need to let Team Build check them out:

 Right after the altered files have been compiled, you can check them back in:

Just in case anything bad happens, there is a way of undoing the changes:

  <!– In case of Build failure, the AfterCompile target is not executed. Undo the changes –>

  <Target Name=“BeforeOnBuildBreak“ Condition=“‘$(IsDesktopBuild)’!=’true’“>

    <Exec WorkingDirectory=“$(SolutionRoot)“

    Command=“$(TF) undo /noprompt &quot;@(AssemblyInfoFiles, ‘&quot; &quot;‘)&quot;“/>

  </Target>

 7. Implement the ExtractRevision custom build task

Simply create a new C# library project with the following class (and add a strong name to it by signing it in the project properties):

This basically goes something like this:

1. Download and install the MS Build Community Tasks from tigris
2. Download and install the MSXSL.exe tool from Microsoft
3. Extend the build.proj file

This process involves the WebDownload build tasks that retrieves the buildlog.xml file from the respective TFS webservice after the build is done. Nex step is transforming the xml file to generate a releasenotes.txt file.

Everything you need to know to get things done is very well documented on Hollidays blog.

However, there are two things to notice: First, you need to download the Community Tasks msi file directly from tigris. The link, Holliday provides, leads to an outdated version that does not include the UseDefaultCredentials property. The result ist, that the process will terminate with a 401 error due to missing authorization.

Second, Holliday does not provide an example xsl file for transformation of the xml file.

To achieve the same result as Holliday does (and shows on the blurry screenshot), you can try using the following xsl file: ReleaseNotes.xsl

Learn everything about it here: TFS Branching Guide 2.0 – Home .

Aber während Besitzer der Team Development Edition sich bisher darüber ärgerten, dass sie nicht in den Genuß der Database Edition kamen ohne dafür noch einmal eine ordentliche Stange Geld hinlegen zu müssen, hat sich Microsoft jetzt dazu entschlossen, für die Besitzer der beiden Editionen die jeweils andere Edition kostenfrei zur Verfügung zu stellen.

Ein besonderer Vorteil ergibt sich hierdurch für alle Microsoft Certified Partner, die über die ISV Kompetenz verfügen. Die durften bisher nämlich eine Instanz des Team Foundation Server nebst fünf Lizenzen der Team Developer Edition kostenfrei einsetzen; Gold Partner sogar 25 (link). Jetzt dürfen sie aus dem Subscriber Portal von Microsoft auch endlich die Database Edition herunterladen.

Hintergrund ist übrigens, dass die Developer Edition und die Database Edition mit Visual Studio 2010 miteinander verschmelzen und Microsoft diesen Vorteil bereits jetzt zum Endkunden durchreichen will.

Better Together – Visual Studio Team System Development Edition and Database Edition
In recognition of the increased need to integrate more of the lifecycle members together, we will provide a unified Development and Database product in Visual Studio Team System 2010. Beginning October 1, 2008 Development Edition and Database Edition MSDN subscribers will have access to both products. (link)

Was bekommen sie dadurch?

• Datenbankprojekttyp mit Skripten zum Erstellen von Datenbanken und Aktualisierung vorhandener Instanzen
• Komponententests auf Datenbankebene
• Automatische Generierung von Testdaten zum Füllen einer Datenbank ohne die Notwendigkeit einer Produktionsumgebung
• Automatische Aktualisierung von Referenzen bei umbenannten Datenbankobjekten
• Funktionen zum Vergleich von Schemata und Daten

Das ist noch weit nicht alles (link), macht aber schon einmal den Mund wässrig…

Nachtrag:

Hier gibt es einen sehr schönen Beitrag, der die Features der Database Edition mit einigen Bildern und Erläuterungen zeigt.