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This package provides a static ThisAssembly.Metadata class with public constants exposing each [System.Reflection.AssemblyMetadata(..)] defined in the project file as supported by the .NET SDK.

The metadata attribute is declared using MSBuild syntax in the project (for .NET 5.0+ projects that have built-in support for @(AssemblyMetadata) items):

  <ItemGroup>
    <AssemblyMetadata Include="Foo" Value="Bar" />
  </ItemGroup>

And a corresponding ThisAssembly.Metadata.Foo constant with the value Bar is provided for this example.

Customizing the generated code

Set the $(ThisAssemblyNamespace) MSBuild property to set the namespace of the generated ThisAssembly root class. Otherwise, it will be generated in the global namespace.

The generated root ThisAssembly class is partial and has no visibility modifier by default, making it internal by default in C#.

You can set the $(ThisAssemblyVisibility) MSBuild property to public to make it public. This will also change all constants to be static readonly properties instead.

Default:

partial class ThisAssembly
{
    public partial class Constants
    {
        public const string Hello = "World";
    }
}

In this case, the compiler will inline the constants directly into the consuming code at the call site, which is optimal for performance for the common usage of constants.

Public:

public partial class ThisAssembly
{
    public partial class Constants
    {
        public static string Hello => "World";
    }
}

This makes it possible for consuming code to remain unchanged and not require a recompile when the the values of ThisAssembly are changed in a referenced assembly.

If you want to keep the properties as constants, you can instead extend the generated code by defining another partial that can modify its visibility as needed (or add new members).

// makes the generated class public
public partial ThisAssembly 
{
    // Nested classes are always public since the outer class 
    // already limits their visibility
    partial class Constants 
    {
        // add some custom constants
        public const string MyConstant = "This isn't configurable via MSBuild";

        // generated code will remain as constants
    }
}

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