Finding bad dependencies using PowerShell

Difficult upgrade

From time to time we want (or have) to upgrade our old application to a new version of framework. Usually for core libraries it goes quite fast but finding, which dependency is using previous version of assembly which is used by ... - it isn't trivial

PowerShell to the rescue

First we need to find out all exe and dll files in our bin folder and load them using reflection into array. We can use below script:

$references = Get-ChildItem . -Recurse -Include @("*.exe","*.dll")| % {
    $loaded = [reflection.assembly]::LoadFile($_.FullName)
    $name = $loaded.ManifestModule
    $loaded.GetReferencedAssemblies() | % {
        $toAdd='' | select Who,FullName,Name,Version
        $toAdd.Who,$toAdd.FullName,$toAdd.Name,$toAdd.Version = `
            $loaded,$_.FullName,$_.Name,$_.Version
        $toAdd
    }
}

Now we can list them sorted by group and sort to give duplicate references:

$references | 
    Group-Object FullName,Version | 
    Select-Object -expand Name | 
    Sort-Object

In my case I got:

[...]
System.Web.Mvc, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, 2.0.0.0  
System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, 3.0.0.0  
System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.1, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, 3.0.0.1  
System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.2.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, 5.2.0.0  
System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.2.3.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, 5.2.3.0  
[...]
RazorGenerator.Mvc, Version=1.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null, 1.5.0.0  
RazorGenerator.Mvc, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7b26dc2a43f6a0d4, 2.0.0.0  

With MVC I don't have to worry about, because I have biding redirection in web.config file, but RazorGenerator.Mvc looks strange. To have information what is using this library just run:

$references | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq 'RazorGenerator.Mvc'}

And results will show you exactly problems.

@cover from http://www.trainingforwarriors.com/are-you-ready-for-an-upgrade/