How do I determine the build mode using reflection?

[Brad]

My company is setting up a deployment process for implementing .NET Windows
applications. One of the standards we want the process to enforce is
verifying that the assembly is built in release mode. Is there a way to
check an assembly to determine if it was built in release mode? The
deployment application will not have access to source code, just the compiled
assembly, so I am assuming I will need to use reflection. However, I have
not found anything in the System.Reflection namespace that provides the build
mode. Any ideas?

[Jan]

The pre-compiler definitions are are only available at compile time.

Anyway, (using default project settings) there is no difference between
a Release and a Debug build since the Symbol Store information is
stored in a separate .pdb file.

So why exactly have you choosen to enfore this policy?

Jan

[John Vottero]

"Jan" <ja***********@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:11**********************@f14g2000cwb.googlegr oups.com...

The pre-compiler definitions are are only available at compile time.

Anyway, (using default project settings) there is no difference between
a Release and a Debug build since the Symbol Store information is
stored in a separate .pdb file.

With the default settings, Release is optimized and Debug isn't.

[Tim Haughton]

"Brad" <br********@newsgroup.nospam> wrote in message
news:E3**********************************@microsof t.com...

My company is setting up a deployment process for implementing .NET Windows applications. One of the standards we want the process to enforce is
verifying that the assembly is built in release mode. Is there a way to
check an assembly to determine if it was built in release mode? The
deployment application will not have access to source code, just the compiled assembly, so I am assuming I will need to use reflection. However, I have
not found anything in the System.Reflection namespace that provides the build mode. Any ideas?

Hi Brad, I know this is possible because I had to do it 2 or 3 years ago. My
memory is getting progressively worse these days, but I'm pretty sure I used
the DebuggableAttribute. Have a look at it, it allows you to check whether
the code is JIT optimised or not. I'm pretty sure that this attribute is
added to an assembly automagically on a debug build. So a wee bit of
reflection should give you the information you need.

--
Regards,

Tim Haughton

Agitek
http://agitek.co.uk
http://blogitek.com/timhaughton

[Jan]

But do you know what optimizations those are? I've profiled debug and
release on a couple of applications and there's been no performance
gain but realease was smaller. So the optimatization is probably space
not speed.

[Jan]

You're totally right [assembly: Debuggable(true, true)] is set if it's
a debug build.
You learn something new everyday!

Jan

[Tim Haughton]

"Jan" <ja***********@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:11**********************@o13g2000cwo.googlegr oups.com...

But do you know what optimizations those are? I've profiled debug and
release on a couple of applications and there's been no performance
gain but realease was smaller. So the optimatization is probably space
not speed.

You probably weren't doing anything intensive enough for it to matter. Some
more complex C# apps I've worked on experience 500% performance increases
when run in release. Admittedly some of this is undoubtedly due to
configuration dependent execution.

--
Regards,

Tim Haughton

Agitek
http://agitek.co.uk
http://blogitek.com/timhaughton