How to programmatically retrieve the version information of Visual Studio for Mac? - xamarin

Question

I want to retrieve the version information of Visual Studio for Mac during a build job of a Xamarin App. The goal is to include them as debug information in the binary. Is there a way to get the version number of Visual Studio, Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android programmatically or with a command statement using msbuild?
Manually one can get the information under:
Visual Studio > About Visual Studio > Show Details > Copy Information [button]
=== Visual Studio Community 2017 for Mac ===
Version 7.6.11 (build 9)
Installation UUID: f7e73512-ad50-4119-a682-e2cf05031ad6
Runtime:
Mono 5.12.0.309 (2018-02/39d89a335c8) (64-bit)
GTK+ 2.24.23 (Raleigh theme)
Xamarin.Mac 4.4.1.178 (master / eeaeb7e6)
Package version: 512000309
=== NuGet ===
Version: 4.3.1.4445
=== .NET Core ===
Runtime: /usr/local/share/dotnet/dotnet
Runtime Versions:
2.1.2
2.1.1
2.0.5
2.0.4
SDK: /usr/local/share/dotnet/sdk/2.1.302/Sdks
SDK Versions:
2.1.302
2.1.301
2.1.4
2.1.3
MSBuild SDKs: /Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/Versions/5.12.0/lib/mono/msbuild/15.0/bin/Sdks
=== Xamarin.Profiler ===
Version: 1.6.3
Location: /Applications/Xamarin Profiler.app/Contents/MacOS/Xamarin Profiler
=== Xamarin.Android ===
Version: 9.0.0.20 (Visual Studio Community)
Android SDK: /Users/christopher/Library/Developer/Xamarin/android-sdk-macosx
Supported Android versions:
4.0.3 (API level 15)
4.1 (API level 16)
4.2 (API level 17)
4.4 (API level 19)
5.0 (API level 21)
5.1 (API level 22)
6.0 (API level 23)
7.0 (API level 24)
7.1 (API level 25)
8.0 (API level 26)
8.1 (API level 27)
SDK Tools Version: 26.1.1
SDK Platform Tools Version: 28.0.1
SDK Build Tools Version: 27.0.3
Java SDK: /usr
java version "1.8.0_91"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_91-b14)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.91-b14, mixed mode)
Android Designer EPL code available here:
https://github.com/xamarin/AndroidDesigner.EPL
=== Apple Developer Tools ===
Xcode 10.1 (14460.46)
Build 10B61
=== Xamarin.Mac ===
Version: 5.0.0.0 (Visual Studio Community)
Hash: b40230c0
Branch:
Build date: 2018-09-27 11:41:37-0400
=== Xamarin.iOS ===
Version: 12.2.1.10 (Visual Studio Community)
Hash: f2a05edd
Branch: d15-9
Build date: 2018-10-31 18:55:57-0400
=== Xamarin Inspector ===
Version: 1.4.3
Hash: db27525
Branch: 1.4-release
Build date: Mon, 09 Jul 2018 21:20:18 GMT
Client compatibility: 1
=== Build Information ===
Release ID: 706110009
Git revision: d7cd66f5e3acd3d46ba0b94a0c935378f828bde0
Build date: 2018-10-31 17:17:12+00
Build branch: release-7.6
Xamarin extensions: bc9b985bfcb480b04a208a6d4045adc443a07857
=== Operating System ===
Mac OS X 10.13.6
Darwin 17.7.0 Darwin Kernel Version 17.7.0
Thu Jun 21 22:53:14 PDT 2018
root:xnu-4570.71.2~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

Answer 1

Here is a simplified version of one of my Global.cs that contains version information obtained during the build:
Global template
namespace SomeVersionInfo
{
public static class Globals
{
public const string VS4MVersion = "SushiVS4MVersion";
public const string XiOSVersion = "SushiXiOSVersion";
public const string XDroidVersion = "SushiXDroidVersion";
}
}
macOS Bash file
VS4MVersion=`/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Print CFBundleVersion' /Applications/Visual\ Studio\ \(Preview\).app/Contents/Info.plist`
XDroidVersion=$(< /Library/Frameworks/Xamarin.Android.framework/Versions/Current/version)
XiOSVersion=$(< /Library/Frameworks/Xamarin.iOS.framework/Versions/Current/Version)
sed -e 's/SushiVS4MVersion/'"$VS4MVersion"'/g' Global.template > Global.cs
sed -i '' -e "s/SushiXiOSVersion/$XiOSVersion/g" Global.cs
sed -i '' -e "s/SushiXDroidVersion/$XDroidVersion/g" Global.cs
Results:
namespace SomeVersionInfo
{
public static class Globals
{
public const string VS4MVersion = "8.0.0.869";
public const string XDroidVersion = "9.1.5";
public const string XiOSVersion = "12.2.1.13";
}
}

Answer 2

Some of the other version information can be retrieved with:
VisualStudio=`/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Print CFBundleVersion' /Applications/Visual\ Studio.app/Contents/Info.plist`
echo $VisualStudio
NetCoreSdk=`dotnet --version`
echo $NetCoreSdk
MsBuild=`msbuild /version | sed -n 4p`
echo $MsBuild
XamarinProfiler=`/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Print CFBundleShortVersionString' /Applications/Xamarin\ Profiler.app/Contents/Info.plist`
echo $XamarinProfiler
XDroid=$(< /Library/Frameworks/Xamarin.Android.framework/Versions/Current/version)
echo $XDroid
SdkTools=`cat /Users/christopher/Library/Developer/Xamarin/android-sdk-macosx/tools/source.properties | grep Pkg.Revision | tail -c 7`
echo $SdkTools
SdkPlatformTools=`cat ~/Library/Developer/Xamarin/android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools/source.properties | grep Pkg.Revision | tail -c 7`
echo $SdkPlatformTools
SdkBuildTools=`ls ~/Library/Developer/Xamarin/android-sdk-macosx/build-tools | tail -n 1`
echo $SdkBuildTools
Java=`java -version 2>&1 | awk -F '"' '/version/ {print $2}'`
echo $Java
AppleDeveloperTools=`/usr/bin/xcodebuild -version | head -1 | sed -n -e 's/^.*Xcode //p'`
echo $AppleDeveloperTools
XMac=$(< /Library/Frameworks/Xamarin.Mac.framework/Versions/Current/Version)
echo $XMac
XiOS=$(< /Library/Frameworks/Xamarin.iOS.framework/Versions/Current/Version)
echo $XiOS
MacOSX=`sw_vers -productVersion`
echo $MacOSX
Visual Studio for Mac seems to use a own version of NuGet, because nuget help prints a different version than listed in Visual Studio's version information. In our build job we download the latest nuget.exe and use it to restore a solution. Therefore we retrieve the version of the nuget.exe:
NuGet=`echo $(mono nuget.exe help | head -1) | sed -n -e 's/^.*Version: //p'`