Question

Is there a way to read value for the WiX variable from a text file?

What I am trying to do is to include a version-specific information into instlal package.

This version information extracted into the text file on the pre-build step, the question is how to propages this text file content into a build process.

One of the possible solution is to update whole .wxs file on the pre-build step too, but it feel a bit sloppy.

Is there any other, less-intrusive way?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Create a separate file ‘includes.wxi’, for example like this:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?> <Include Id='VersionNumberInclude'>     <?define MajorVersion='1' ?>     <?define MinorVersion='5' ?>     <?define MicroVersion='99' ?>     <?define BuildVersion='14954' ?> </Include> 

In your wxs file, you can include this file like this:

<?include VersionNumberInclude.wxi ?> 

And the defines can be used like this:

<?define VersionNumberInternal='$(var.MajorVersion).$(var.MinorVersion).$(var.BuildVersion)' ?> <?define VersionNumberUserVisible='$(var.MajorVersion).$(var.MinorVersion).$(var.MicroVersion).$(var.BuildVersion)' ?>