AssemblyInfo and Related Utility Classes

I worked on one project where I need to get an assembly's information defined in the project's AssemblyInfo.cs. There are many ways to get these information. One way is by calling Assemlby class' method GetCustomAttributes() like this:

Assembly _assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
objects[] _assemblyAttributes = _assembly.GetCustomAttributes(true);

I tried to print out the array of retrieved attributes. There are 15 items. I thought the order of these attributes are pre-defined. Then I wrote a class to get some of assembly information out by the index.

However, I run into a problem. When I changed some attributes, for example AssemblyCulture(), my class does not work any more. I finally found out that the order of attributes in the object array are changed! Before I realized this, I tried other ways to get AssebmlyIno. Here is another class by using FileVerionInfo class:

using System;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Globalization;
//...
class AssemblyInfo1
    {
        private Assembly _assembly;
        private FileVersionInfo _fileInfo;

        public AssemblyInfo1()
        {
            _assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
            _fileInfo = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(_assembly.Location); 
            
        }

        public string Title
        {
            get
            {
                return _fileInfo.Comments;
            }
        }

        public string Description
        {
            get
            {
                return _fileInfo.Comments;
            }
        }

        public string Company
        {
            get
            {
                return _fileInfo.CompanyName;
            }
        }

        public string Product
        {
            get
            {
                return _fileInfo.ProductName;
            }
        }

        public string CopyRight
        {
            get
            {
                return _fileInfo.LegalCopyright;
            }
        }

        public string Trademark
        {
            get
            {
                return _fileInfo.LegalTrademarks;
            }
        }

        public string FileVersion
        {
            get
            {
                return _fileInfo.FileVersion;
            }
        }

        public string InformationVersion
        {
            get
            {
                return _fileInfo.ProductVersion;
            }
        }

        public Version Version
        {
            get
            {
                return _assembly.GetName().Version;
            }
        }

        public CultureInfo Culture
        {
            get
            {
                return _assembly.GetName().CultureInfo;
            }
        }
    }

The only problem is that I could not find a way to get AssemblyConfiguration() information. After I realized the order change in the object array retrieved from GetCustomAttributes(), I changed the class with string comparing to get assembly's information. My second class can get AssemblyConfiguration() information.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Diagnostics;
// ...
public class AssemblyInfo2
    {
        private const string TITLE = "System.Reflection.AssemblyTitleAttribute";
        private const string DESCRIPTION = "System.Reflection.AssemblyDescriptionAttribute";
        private const string CONFIGURATION = "System.Reflection.AssemblyConfigurationAttribute";
        private const string COMPANY = "System.Reflection.AssemblyCompanyAttribute";
        private const string PRODUCT = "System.Reflection.AssemblyProductAttribute";
        private const string COPYRIGHT = "System.Reflection.AssemblyCopyrightAttribute";
        private const string TRADEMARK = "System.Reflection.AssemblyTrademarkAttribute";
        private const string FILE_VERSION = "System.Reflection.AssemblyFileVersionAttribute";
        private const string INFORMATION_VERSION = "System.Reflection.AssemblyInformationalVersionAttribute";

        private Assembly _assembly;
        private object[] _assemblyAttributes;

        public AssemblyInfo2()
        {
            _assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
            _assemblyAttributes = _assembly.GetCustomAttributes(true);
        }

        private T GetAttribute<T>(string typeString)
            where T : class
        {
            List<object> objects = new List<object>(_assemblyAttributes);
            object assemblyObj = objects.Find(
                delegate(object item)
                {
                    bool found = false;
                    if (item != null)
                    {
                        found = item.ToString().Equals(typeString);
                    }
                    return found;
                });

            return assemblyObj as T;
        }

        public AssemblyTitleAttribute Title
        {
            get
            {
                return GetAttribute<AssemblyTitleAttribute>(TITLE);
            }
        }

        public AssemblyDescriptionAttribute Description
        {
            get
            {
                return GetAttribute<AssemblyDescriptionAttribute>(DESCRIPTION);
            }
        }

        public AssemblyConfigurationAttribute Configuration
        {
            get
            {
                return GetAttribute<AssemblyConfigurationAttribute>(CONFIGURATION);
            }
        }

        public AssemblyCompanyAttribute Company
        {
            get
            {
                return GetAttribute<AssemblyCompanyAttribute>(COMPANY);
            }
        }

        public AssemblyProductAttribute Product
        {
            get
            {
                return GetAttribute<AssemblyProductAttribute>(PRODUCT);
            }
        }

        public AssemblyCopyrightAttribute CopyRight
        {
            get
            {
                return GetAttribute<AssemblyCopyrightAttribute>(COPYRIGHT);
            }
        }

        public AssemblyTrademarkAttribute Trademark
        {
            get
            {
                return GetAttribute<AssemblyTrademarkAttribute>(TRADEMARK);
            }
        }

        public AssemblyFileVersionAttribute FileVersion
        {
            get
            {
                return GetAttribute<AssemblyFileVersionAttribute>(FILE_VERSION);
            }
        }

        public AssemblyInformationalVersionAttribute InformationVersion
        {
            get
            {
                return GetAttribute<AssemblyInformationalVersionAttribute>(INFORMATION_VERSION);
            }
        }

        public Version Version
        {
            get
            {
                return _assembly.GetName().Version;
            }
        }

        public CultureInfo Culture
        {
            get
            {
                return _assembly.GetName().CultureInfo;
            }
        }
    }

By the way, the Culture property is based on AssemblyCulture("") setting in AssebmlyInfo.cs. You just cannot set this information other than empty string "". I tried to change it to "en" or "en-US". The project just cannot be compiled. Actually, this is the property I tried to change and I tried to change project's property from "assembly information..." in Application tab, and then the order of attributes retrieved from GetCustomeAttributes() is changed. It's very interesting issue. I am not sure how the assembly attribute information are populated in the assembly.