How do I find the current time and date at compilation time in .net/C# application?

Question

I want to include the current time and date in a .net application so I can include it in the start up log to show the user what version they have. Is it possible to retrieve

Answer 1

There's nothing built into the language to do this.

You could write a pre-build step to write out the current date and time to a source file though (in a string literal, for example, or as source code to generate a DateTime), and then compile that as part of your build.

I would suggest you make this source file as simple as possible, containing nothing but this information. Alternatively it could edit an existing file.

For an example of this, see the build file for MiscUtil which embeds the current SVN revision into the AssemblyFileVersion attribute. Some assorted bits of the build file: