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Need help to detect code changes in .net assemblies
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H.B
Hi,

I want to find out a way to distinguish between modified dlls
(meaning there has been a code / resource change) and unmodified dlls in of
a build. Because of the MVID and version info, the assembly gets modified
each time I rebuild the project(even without modifying anything in the
code). But I want to find out a way to detect whether the dll actually
changed or not. One possible way to approach this is to extract the il code
and resources then compare those excluding the MVID and what ever other
versioning info, but it is time consuming and requires the use of an
external tool (or is there a way to generate the il code within my program
using .net?).

Or is there a better, faster and efficient way of doing this ? I was
thinking that if I can find the structure of a dll then I can exclude the
MVID and what ever versioning info and compare the rest of the dll file
using a hash comparison or something like that. But couldn't find the
physical structure of an .Net assembly. Can anyone help me ? Thanks.
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David Levine
Since it's your own dll you can set the assembly version to change only when
you explicitly change it yourself. You can then check the assembly version
against the last known version. You can also check external things such as
the time-date stamp, the file size, etc. This may be appropriate depending
on what you are really trying to accomlish.

"H.B" <Click here to reveal e-mail address> wrote in message
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H.B
Actually I am talking about shared assemblies where many programmers are
involved in developing them. I want a way to find out the files that are
modified given only the dlls (better if it doesn't depend on the developer).

Cant check date or time stamp because the batch build that is running
for all the projects builds all the projects creating new assemblies each
time. Actually that is my problem, I want to find only the modified (code or
resources) files of the build.

"David Levine" <Click here to reveal e-mail address> wrote in message
news:#Click here to reveal e-mail address...
> Since it's your own dll you can set the assembly version to change only
when
[Original message clipped]
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Stu Smith
"H.B" <Click here to reveal e-mail address> wrote in message
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[Original message clipped]

Surely you can use your source control system for this? You know the time
(or changeset no) of the last build, so you can build a list of all files
changed since then.

[Original message clipped]
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Peter Drayton [MSFT] (VIP)
The other suggestions of using a source code control system or the Assembly
version are good ones, BTW.

However, if you really want to crack the file format &examine the bits
yourself, you can - we use the regular Windows PE file format, then we add
an additional set of metadata tables & string/blob heaps to carry the MD &
IL. This format is doc'ed in the ECMA specs - see
http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/ecma/ for full details, or read Serge Lidin's
excellent book on the IL assembler for an easier intro.

--Peter
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