Got an email one day that said, '...all files that must be audited, shall be submitted with an MD5 signature...'. Hmmm, what to do then? I could (a) use an external product to calculate the signature, transfer them to a file and email the file to all the interested parties or (b) do the geek thing and write an app to do it for me... Duhhh, I have to do the geek thing. In this case, I explored the VS.NET Extensibility Framework. If you have not used this before it is worth investigating. This little gem stays out of site and out of mind, silently calculating MD5 signatures for all the compiled elements of your project, and drops an XML file with all the details in your project directory updating it when you recompile. Add this artifact to your source repository and you can find your file signatures quick and easy. I added a search module in the aforementioned audit tool that could perform audits based on this output file. Ahhh, I love it when a plan comes together.
Tags: side projects