Can hash of .NET binary be used to check if underlying source code has changed

Question

We have several VS 2008 solutions with close to 90 dlls + exes in all. They all use .NET 3.5.

I'd like to convert the solutions & projects to VS 2010 (not ready for the leap to 2012), but maintain the same framework version.

If I generate a hash of the dll compiled using VS 2008, and another hash of the dll generated using VS 2010 will the hashes match?

Are there cases where I would get a false negative? In other words, would the hash not match even though the underlying source code hasn't changed?

Couldn't find any authoritative reference that would help me figure this out.

Answer 1

No they will not, in fact, just compiling a dll twice one right after another will have a diffrent hash. There are some pieces of information that causes the hash to change every compile.

However there are many alternatives, see the links to the other questions that where posted as comments to your question.

This link provides details of why & what is different. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2012/05/31/past-performance-is-no-guarantee-of-future-results.aspx

This link has several suggestions for alternative approaches to solve the underlying requirement. Compare compiled .NET assemblies?