Customizing the Driver Version Information

The version information compiled into an IVI-C driver DLL, such as its file version, product name, company, and copyright, is generated by Nimbus from the settings on the General page of the driver settings. Nimbus writes these values to a header file (Version.h), and the code generation for this file is governed by the contents of a Nimbus text template (Version.h.ntt) file included in the IVI-C driver project, in the same way as the driver header file. Driver developers can edit the text template to take some or all of the version information from elsewhere.

Basics of the version file template

The text template (Version.h.ntt) file appears in the driver project with the generated header file (Version.h) appearing as a dependency. The version resource itself is defined in Version.rc2, which includes Version.h and builds the version resource from the macros it defines.

Caution

Do not modify the contents of Version.h or Version.rc2, as those changes will be overwritten by Nimbus.

The template defines one macro for each value in the version resource. The file macros describe the driver DLL itself, and the product macros describe the product the driver DLL belongs to.

Macro	Version resource field	Default value
VER_FILEVERSION	FILEVERSION	Driver version, as major,minor,build,revision
VER_FILEVERSION_STR	FileVersion	Driver version, as "major, minor, build, revision"
VER_FILEDESCRIPTION_STR	FileDescription	Driver name followed by “Module”
VER_COMMENTS_STR	Comments	Description
VER_INTERNALNAME_STR	InternalName	Driver name
VER_ORIGINALFILENAME_STR	OriginalFilename	File name of the 32-bit or 64-bit driver DLL
VER_PRODUCTNAME_STR	ProductName	Driver name followed by “Module”
VER_PRODUCTVERSION	PRODUCTVERSION	Driver version, as major,minor,build,revision
VER_PRODUCTVERSION_STR	ProductVersion	Driver version, as "major, minor, build, revision"
VER_COMPANYNAME_STR	CompanyName	Driver vendor
VER_LEGALCOPYRIGHT_STR	LegalCopyright	Copyright

The auto-generated values are represented by replacement tags that are delineated by percent signs (%). For instance, the following excerpt from the template file shows the product macros.

/****************************************************************************
 *------------------------ Product Version Defines -------------------------*
 ****************************************************************************/
#define VER_PRODUCTNAME_STR         "%DriverName% Module\0"
#define VER_PRODUCTVERSION          %VersionMajor%,%VersionMinor%,%VersionBuild%,%VersionRevision%
#define VER_PRODUCTVERSION_STR      "%VersionMajor%, %VersionMinor%, %VersionBuild%, %VersionRevision%\0"
#define VER_COMPANYNAME_STR         "%Company%\0"
#define VER_LEGALCOPYRIGHT_STR      "%Copyright%\0"

The following replacement tags are available in the template.

Replacement tag	Value
%DriverName%	Driver name
%Description%	Description
%Company%	Driver vendor
%Copyright%	Copyright
%VersionMajor%, %VersionMinor%, %VersionBuild%, %VersionRevision%	The parts of the driver version
%FileName32%, %FileName64%	File names of the 32-bit and 64-bit driver DLLs
%PrefixUpper%	Driver prefix, in uppercase

At build time, these tags are replaced by Nimbus code generation with the appropriate values. Every macro that Version.rc2 uses must remain defined, whether by the template itself or by a file it includes.

Example Customization: Taking the product information from a shared header

A driver is often one component of a larger product that has its own name and release schedule. In that case the file version can continue to track the driver, while the product name and version reported by the driver DLL come from the larger product. In the excerpt below, the product macros in the text template are replaced by an include of a header file that is shared by every component of the product.

/****************************************************************************
 *------------------------ Product Version Defines -------------------------*
 ****************************************************************************/
#include "ProductVersion.h"

#endif // __%PrefixUpper%_VERSION_HEADER

The shared header file defines the same five product macros.

#define VER_PRODUCTNAME_STR         "Acme Digital Instrument Suite\0"
#define VER_PRODUCTVERSION          4,2,468,0
#define VER_PRODUCTVERSION_STR      "4, 2, 468, 0\0"
#define VER_COMPANYNAME_STR         "Acme Instruments, Inc.\0"
#define VER_LEGALCOPYRIGHT_STR      "Copyright 2015-2026 Acme Instruments, Inc.\0"

When the build runs, the driver DLL reports its own file version from the driver settings, and the product name, product version, company, and copyright of the larger product.

Note

The resource compiler looks for an included file in the driver project folder first. A shared header file that resides elsewhere must be on the resource compiler’s include path, which is set in the driver project properties under Resources -> General -> Additional Include Directories.