Support for build number outside of the vss-extension.json

[nschonni]

Support for non-SemVer versioning was discussed here #232 although AFAIK a 4 number version number is not supported https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/extend/develop/manifest

Our current workaround for this has been to create a temporary version file with the following

// script/build.js
const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');

// Get the original/core extension JSON file so we can read the version number
const vssJson = require("../vss-extension.json");

// Create an override JSON file that uses the current time in milliseconds as the SemVer PATCH number
const tmpVss = "{\"version\": \"" + vssJson.version.replace("x", Date.now()) + "\"}";

// Write the JSON as a .tmp file so it doesn't get tracked by Git
fs.writeFileSync(path.join(__dirname, '../vss-extension.tmp'), tmpVss);

This produces an override json that can then be fed into the commandline like
tfx extension create --service-url http://MYSERVER:8080/tfs --overrides-file vss-extension.tmp

vss-extension.tmp

{"version": "1.0.1519867829920"}

Is this a common enough use case that it should be integrated into the CLI in some manner to better support CI/CD of extensions? Or is it better to try to do this in something like https://github.com/Microsoft/vso-extension-tools

[nschonni]

OK, ran into an issue with this approach since the current timestamp exceeds the Int.Max and fails on publish (but not create).
Updated script is here, to allow splitting of the last 2 version digits between data and time

const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');

// Get the original/core extension JSON
const vssJson = require("../vss-extension.json");

// Create a build number that uses the date and the time as separate version 
// numbers to prevent deployment collisions
const currentDate = new Date()
const buildDate = currentDate.toISOString()
                                .split('T')[0]
                                .replace(/-/g, '');

const buildTime = currentDate.toISOString()
                                .split('T')[1]
                                .replace(/:/g, '')
                                .replace('T', '')
                                .replace('.', '')
                                .replace('Z', '');

const buildVersion = vssJson.version
                                .replace('buildDate', buildDate)
                                .replace('buildTime', buildTime);

const tmpVss = `{"version": "${buildVersion}"}`;

// Write as a temp file so it doesn't get tracked by Git
fs.writeFileSync(path.join(__dirname, '../vss-extension.tmp'), tmpVss);