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AsmSpy: A little tool to help fix assembly version conflicts

by - February 04, 2011

Do you ever get these kinds of messages when you compile your project?

------ Build started: Project: Suteki.Shop.CreateDb, Configuration: Debug x86 ------
No way to resolve conflict between "System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"
and "System.Web.Mvc, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35".
Choosing "System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" arbitrarily.
Consider app.config remapping of assembly "NHibernate, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=aa95f207798dfdb4"
from Version "3.0.0.2001" [] to Version "3.0.0.4000"
[D:\Source\sutekishop\Suteki.Shop\packages\NHibernate.3.0.0.4000\lib\NHibernate.dll] to solve conflict and get rid of warning.
Consider app.config remapping of assembly "System.Web.Mvc, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"
from Version "2.0.0.0" [C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft ASP.NET\ASP.NET MVC 2\Assemblies\System.Web.Mvc.dll] to Version "3.0.0.0"
[C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft ASP.NET\ASP.NET MVC 3\Assemblies\System.Web.Mvc.dll] to solve conflict and get rid of warning.
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Microsoft.Common.targets(1360,9): warning MSB3247:
Found conflicts between different versions of the same dependent assembly.
Suteki.Shop.CreateDb -> D:\Source\sutekishop\Suteki.Shop\Suteki.Shop.CreateDb\bin\Debug\Suteki.Shop.CreateDb.exe


The problem is that the build output doesn’t tell me which of my assemblies references version 2.0.0.0 of System.Web.Mvc and which references version 3.0.0.0.

If you’re writing software using lots of 3rd party assemblies like I do, it’s a constant problem. I’ve written a little bit of code that I drag around with me that outputs lists of assemblies that my assemblies reference. I’ve found it very useful for resolving these kinds of issues.

Now I’ve wrapped it up as a little console app, AsmSpy, and put it on github here:

https://github.com/mikehadlow/AsmSpy

Or you can download a zip file of the compiled tool here:

http://static.mikehadlow.com/AsmSpy.zip

How it works:

Simply run AsmSpy giving it a path to your bin directory (the folder where your project's assemblies live). E.g:

AsmSpy D:\Source\sutekishop\Suteki.Shop\Suteki.Shop\bin


It will output a list of all the assemblies referenced by your assemblies. You can look at the

list to determine where versioining conflicts occur.

 

The output looks something like this:

....
Reference: System.Runtime.Serialization
3.0.0.0 by Microsoft.ServiceModel.Samples.XmlRpc
3.0.0.0 by Microsoft.Web.Mvc
4.0.0.0 by Suteki.Shop
Reference: System.Web.Mvc
2.0.0.0 by Microsoft.Web.Mvc
3.0.0.0 by MvcContrib
3.0.0.0 by MvcContrib.FluentHtml
3.0.0.0 by Suteki.Common
2.0.0.0 by Suteki.Common
3.0.0.0 by Suteki.Shop
2.0.0.0 by Suteki.Shop
Reference: System.ServiceModel.Web
3.5.0.0 by Microsoft.Web.Mvc
Reference: System.Web.Abstractions
3.5.0.0 by Microsoft.Web.Mvc
....


You can see that System.Web.Mvc is referenced by 7 assemblies in my bin folder. Some reference

version 2.0.0.0 and some version 3.0.0.0. I can now resolve any conflicts.

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