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Version Numbers

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This document has been translated using machine translation without human review.

What is the difference between AssemblyVersion, FileVersion, Version, and PackageVersion?​

  • AssemblyVersion — The assembly version (.dll, .exe). It is an important value for internal .NET processes.
  • FileVersion — The file version (displayed in the file properties in Windows Explorer).
  • Version — The project version. Used as the value for AssemblyVersion and FileVersion if they are not specified.
  • PackageVersion — The NuGet package version.
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>
    <AssemblyVersion>1.1.1.1</AssemblyVersion>
    <FileVersion>2.2.2.2</FileVersion>
    <Version>3.3.3.3</Version>
    <PackageVersion>4.4.4-alpha.4</PackageVersion>
    <PackageId>My.Test</PackageId>
    <GeneratePackageOnBuild>true</GeneratePackageOnBuild>
  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

View versions in the final build

How to specify the version number?​

In most cases, I prefer to specify each segment of the version number separately and then assemble the final number from these parts for different cases.

This allows creating a separate file version number (Version/FileVersion) in the standard format 1.0.0.0, a package version number (PackageVersion) in the SemVer format — 1.0.0-beta.1. The assembly version number AssemblyVersion can be formed separately.

<Project>
  <PropertyGroup>
    <MajorVersionNumber>1</MajorVersionNumber>
    <MinorVersionNumber>0</MinorVersionNumber>
    <PatchVersionNumber>0</PatchVersionNumber>
    <BuildVersionNumber>0</BuildVersionNumber>
    <SuffixVersionNumber>-beta.1</SuffixVersionNumber>
    <PackageVersion>$(MajorVersionNumber).$(MinorVersionNumber).$(PatchVersionNumber)$(SuffixVersionNumber)</PackageVersion>
    <Version>$(MajorVersionNumber).$(MinorVersionNumber).$(PatchVersionNumber).$(BuildVersionNumber)</Version>
    <AssemblyVersion>$(BuildVersionNumber)</AssemblyVersion>
  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

How to include git metadata in the version number?​

The following example includes the hash and date of the last commit, as well as the branch name in the format: 9b1c2eed78afc24989fb2fdbd97a2d770b384168;2025-09-24T22:58:29+03:00;HEAD -> master.

<Target Name="SetSourceRevisionId" BeforeTargets="InitializeSourceControlInformation">
  <Exec Condition=" '$(OS)' == 'Windows_NT' " Command="git log -1 --pretty=%%H;%%aI;%%D" ConsoleToMSBuild="True" IgnoreExitCode="False">
    <Output PropertyName="SourceRevisionId" TaskParameter="ConsoleOutput" />
  </Exec>
  <Exec Condition=" '$(OS)' == 'Unix' " Command="git log -1 --pretty='%H;%aI;%D'" ConsoleToMSBuild="True" IgnoreExitCode="False">
    <Output PropertyName="SourceRevisionId" TaskParameter="ConsoleOutput" />
  </Exec>
</Target>
note

The $(SourceRevisionId) property will be automatically added to the version number, provided this behavior is not disabled using the IncludeSourceRevisionInInformationalVersion parameter.