Re: [Ikvm-developers] AssemblyVersion vs AssemblyFileVersion

[Jeroen F. <je...@su...>]

Bell, Trevor (E O C&S US) wrote:
> For patch releases though, since they are binary compatible, would it be
> possible to leave the assembly version the same?

No, because that would also make newer -> older possible. If you ship an app that depends on IKVM 0.46.0.2 (and has those assemblies in its private directory) and then another app installs IKVM 0.46.0.1 in the GAC, the first app would suddenly start using the older version.

> It seems like this is one of the main reasons to have a separate
> assembly version and an assembly file version.

They are just two very different things. The file version is simply the Win32 resource file version.

> In our shop it would allow us to deploy newer IKVM patches more
> frequently, if we did not have to change anything in our projects
> (app.config or assembly references).

Have you also considered the downside? Suppose IKVM 0.46.0.2 ships (with a publisher policy, or even the same assembly version) and someone installs this on a system running your app. You have not yet completed your testing with this new version, but the customer is already running with it.

> Unfortunately, there are a lot of places where we have to coordinate
> these changes. If the assembly version did not change, we only need
> to copy over the newer assemblies and put them in the GAC.

I understand the inconvenience, but the alternative is also not without downsides.

Another issue (for me) is that all the IKVM.OpenJDK.*.dll are basically a single unit, but if the version number would stay the same (or a publisher policy was used) it would be possible to mix different versions and that is basically untestable for me.

Regards,
Jeroen