How Can I Programmatically Retrieve My Application's Build Date for a Better User Experience?

Enhance Software Versioning: Displaying the Build Date

Clear software versioning is crucial for a positive user experience. Instead of relying on cryptic build numbers, users often prefer to know the release date to easily determine if they have the latest version. This article provides a solution for developers to programmatically access and display this information.

While obtaining the build number is simple using Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version.ToString(), retrieving the build date requires a different approach. A robust solution involves extracting the linker timestamp from the PE header of the executable. Leveraging Joe Spivey's C# implementation, we can efficiently retrieve this data:

<code class="language-csharp">public static DateTime GetLinkerTime(this Assembly assembly, TimeZoneInfo target = null)
{
    // Implementation provided in the reference material
}</code>

Implementation and Usage:

The code's usage is straightforward:

<code class="language-csharp">var linkTimeLocal = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetLinkerTime();</code>

This method offers the most accurate and reliable way to obtain the build date, allowing for clear and user-friendly display within your application, facilitating better communication regarding software updates.

Added Benefit: The function also allows retrieval of the build time by providing a TimeZoneInfo instance as an argument to GetLinkerTime.

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