Commented AssemblyVersion attributes cause confusing error

[distantcam]

While converting a project to use GitVersion I commented out the Assembly*Version attributes but still received the following error when compiling.

File contains assembly version attributes with conflict with the attributes generated by GitVersionProperties\AssemblyInfo.cs

Checking the source code GitVersion is still picking up the text, even though it's commented out, and reporting the error.

[SimonCropp]

so when can i have roslyn :)

[distantcam]

[SimonCropp]

So that code is clearly a hack. Dont think it even works for other languages :)

[JakeGinnivan]

Can we close this, or do we want to try and improve the hack and detect if the code is commented? :P

[SimonCropp]

unless @distantcam can come up with some magic i say we close this

[distantcam]

Dammit @SimonCropp you know I can't refuse. 👅

A few questions though.

• Why is it analyzing the source? Is the compiled assembly not available at this point?
• I can use the Roslyn CTP here. Did you want me to, or try to come up with another solution?

[distantcam]

Also, I'm concerned you want to close this bug because it's "too hard". That's not a valid reason to close a bug report.

[SimonCropp]

Why is it analysing the source? Is the compiled assembly not available at this point?

No the dll is not available. this uses the pre-compilation technique I discussed with you a while back. ie it injects a new cs file into the build pipeline

I can use the Roslyn CTP here. Did you want me to, or try to come up with another solution

TBH i am not sure the dependency on roslyn is worth the baggage in this case.

I'm concerned you want to close this bug because it's "too hard". That's not a valid reason to close a bug report.

Correct. but is we cant find a way of fixing this in an acceptable way it is better to close it and document it as a known issue. basically we should not leave an issue open if we never intend to fix it.

I am thinking the low impact approach might work better here. So perhaps we do two things.

• make the error message mention that it is not enough to comment out the attribute
• make the error link to the source files. so when someone clicks on it takes them to the offending code

Thoughts?

[distantcam]

Correct. but is we cant find a way of fixing this in an acceptable way it is better to close it and document it as a known issue. basically we should not leave an issue open if we never intend to fix it.

I just find it amusing that you were complaining about an MSBuild bug report that went the same way.

Improved error messages would help. I also think the text search could be improved to handle the easier cases (line starts with // or '). Harder cases can just deal with the error by removing the text.

[SimonCropp]

I just find it amusing that you were complaining about an MSBuild bug report that went the same way

Oh snap. The difference is the MSBuild team did not document it as a known issue or make any effort to inform the user (via an error message in this case) that something has gone wrong. I am not proposing "pretending this isnt an issue", I am proposing mitigating it and publicising the problem. The devil is in the detail

also think the text search could be improved to handle the easier cases (line starts with // or ').

Sounds acceptable. any other cases can be caught by the error message. I will work on this

[seankearney]

I've updated the wiki to make mention that the Assembly*Version attributes must be removed from AssemblyInfo.cs (at least when using pre-release NuGet)

[FredrikGoransson]

I just stumbled upon this problem as well and only after finding this issue did I understand that the AssemblyInfo.cs is parsed as text and the commented example line included by default in all VS-projects needs to be deleted as wll.

I would suggest adding a short line or note about that to the Wiki as well, in addition to the lines:

Remove the Assembly*Version attributes from your Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs file. Sample default:
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.0.0")]
[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("1.0.0.0")]

[asbjornu]

As I mentioned in a comment to 41f84f3; the current implementation is a bit naïve, as AssemblyVersion, AssemblyFileVersion and AssemblyInformationalVersion can be mentioned in comments, class names or otherwise without actually being [assembly:] attributes. It shouldn't be a high priority to fix, but we just bumped into this problem and it would be nice if nothing had to be done in our code to make GitVersionTask happy. :)

While I agree that taking a Roslyn dependency is a bit over the top, the current implementation doesn't need much in terms of string searching to cater to a lot more cases than it does today. A simple Regex would not be fool-proof, but would get us close enough, I'd say.