How do I get my App's version info

[Tamerocyte]

Hi all,

I have developed an application with MS VC++ 6.0
I have set the version resource and want to know how to acquire this version info in my application so I can display it in a dialog. Is there an API for this, my search of msdn failed... any assistance will be much obliged

thanks

[Andreas Masur]

To retrieve the version information you can use the following functions...

DWORD GetFileVersionInfoSize(LPTSTR lptstrFilename, LPDWORD lpdwHandle)

BOOL GetFileVersionInfo(LPTSTR lptstrFilename,
                        DWORD  dwHandle,
                        DWORD  dwLen,
                        LPVOID lpData)

BOOL VerQueryValue(const LPVOID pBlock,
                   LPTSTR       lpSubBlock,
                   LPVOID       *lplpBuffer,
                   PUINT        puLen)

DWORD VerLanguageName(DWORD wLang, LPTSTR szLang, DWORD nSize)

'GetFileVersionInfoSize()' returns the size of the version information. 'GetFileVersionInfo()' uses information retrieved by 'GetFileVersionInfoSize()' to retrieve a structure that contains the version information. 'VerQueryValue()' retrieves a specific member from that structure. Your setup program needs to call those function depending on the error code returned by e.g. 'VerInstallFile()'.

The following is an example class which wraps the whole thing...

#ifndef VERSION
#define VERSION

#pragma warning(disable : 4505 4710)
#pragma comment(lib, "version.lib")

#include <string>
#include <sstream>
#include <iomanip>
#include <exception>
#include <new>
#include <windows.h>


namespace Version
{
  struct Language
  {
    WORD m_wLanguage;
    WORD m_wCodePage;

    Language()
    {
      m_wLanguage = 0;
      m_wCodePage = 0;
    }
  };
}


class CVersion
{
public:
  CVersion()
  {
    // Get application name
    TCHAR szBuffer[MAX_PATH] = "";

    if(::GetModuleFileName(0, szBuffer, sizeof(szBuffer) - 1))
    {
      std::string strAppName = szBuffer;
      strAppName             = strAppName.substr(strAppName.rfind("\\") + 1);

      // Get version info
      DWORD dwHandle = 0;

      DWORD dwResourceSize = ::GetFileVersionInfoSize(const_cast<char *>(strAppName.c_str()), &dwHandle);
      if(dwResourceSize)
      {
        m_pucResourceData = new unsigned char[dwResourceSize];
        if(m_pucResourceData)
        {
          if(::GetFileVersionInfo(const_cast<char *>(strAppName.c_str()),
                                  0,
                                  dwResourceSize,
                                  static_cast<LPVOID>(m_pucResourceData)) != FALSE)
          {
            UINT uiSize = 0;

            // Get language information
            if(::VerQueryValue(static_cast<LPVOID>(m_pucResourceData),
                               "\\VarFileInfo\\Translation",
                               reinterpret_cast<LPVOID *>(&m_pLanguageInformation),
                               &uiSize) == FALSE)
              throw std::exception("Requested localized version information not available");
          }
          else
          {
            std::stringstream strsException;
            strsException << "Could not get version information (Windows error: " << ::GetLastError() << ")";
            throw std::exception(strsException.str().c_str());
          }
        }
        else
          throw std::bad_alloc();
      }
      else
      {
        std::stringstream strsException;
        strsException << "No version information found (Windows error: " << ::GetLastError() << ")";
        throw std::exception(strsException.str().c_str());
      }
    }
    else
      throw std::exception("Could not get application name");
  }

  ~CVersion() { delete [] m_pucResourceData; }
  std::string GetProductName() const { return GetValue("ProductName"); }
  std::string GetInternalName() const { return GetValue("InternalName"); }
  std::string GetProductVersion() const { return GetValue("ProductVersion"); }
  std::string GetSpecialBuild() const { return GetValue("SpecialBuild"); }
  std::string GetPrivateBuild() const { return GetValue("PrivateBuild"); }
  std::string GetCopyright() const { return GetValue("LegalCopyright"); }
  std::string GetTrademarks() const { return GetValue("LegalTrademarks"); }
  std::string GetComments() const { return GetValue("Comments"); }
  std::string GetCompanyName() const { return GetValue("CompanyName"); }
  std::string GetFileVersion() const { return GetValue("FileVersion"); }
  std::string GetFileDescription() const { return GetValue("FileDescrition"); }

private:
  unsigned char     *m_pucResourceData;                   // Resource data
  Version::Language *m_pLanguageInformation;              // Language information

  std::string GetValue(const std::string &refcstrKey) const
  {
    if(m_pucResourceData)
    {
      UINT              uiSize   = 0;
      std::stringstream strsTemp;
      LPVOID            pvValue  = 0;

      // Build query string
      strsTemp << "\\StringFileInfo\\" << std::setw(4) << std::setfill('0') << std::hex
               << m_pLanguageInformation->m_wLanguage << std::setw(4) << std::hex
               << m_pLanguageInformation->m_wCodePage << "\\" << refcstrKey;

      if(::VerQueryValue(static_cast<LPVOID>(m_pucResourceData),
                         const_cast<LPTSTR>(strsTemp.str().c_str()),
                         static_cast<LPVOID *>(&pvValue),
                         &uiSize) != FALSE)
        return static_cast<LPTSTR>(pvValue);
    }


    return "";
  }
};

#endif

[Tamerocyte]

Thank you
You reply is very useful

[Andreas Masur]

You are welcome...

[Tamerocyte]

strsException << "Could not get version information (Windows error: " << ::GetLastError() >> ")";

I think there was a typing error there,

strsException << "Could not get version information (Windows error: " << ::GetLastError() << ")";

thanks

[Andreas Masur]

I think there was a typing error there,

Yep...sorry about that...

[VictorN]

Hi all,

I have developed an application with MS VC++ 6.0
I have set the version resource and want to know how to acquire this version info in my application so I can display it in a dialog. Is there an API for this, my search of msdn failed... any assistance will be much obliged

thanks

You could also take a look at this article: Get VersionInfo from resource file