LiteDb.VersionChecker

🔍 Simple and reliable utility to detect if a .db file was created with LiteDB 4 or LiteDB 5 — without trying to open the file.

🧠 Based on the actual internal logic used by LiteDB to determine file structure versions (FileReaderV7, FileReaderV8, etc.).

✨ Features

• ✅ Detects LiteDB 4 files (datafile version 7)
• ✅ Detects LiteDB 5 files (datafile version 8)
• ✅ Works even on encrypted LiteDB 5 files
• ✅ Zero dependencies
• ✅ .NET Standard 2.0+ / .NET 6+ compatible

🚀 Installation

If published as a NuGet package:

dotnet add package LiteDb.VersionChecker

Otherwise, just copy the class from LiteDbVersionDetector.cs into your project.

🧪 Usage

string version = LiteDbVersionDetector.DetectLiteDbVersion("mydata.db");
Console.WriteLine($"Detected version: {version}");

Output:

LiteDB 4
LiteDB 5
No LiteDB file

🔍 How it works

LiteDB stores internal metadata at fixed offsets inside the first 1024 bytes of the file.

This library reads:

• A special header string: ** This is a LiteDB file **
• A version byte:
  • 7 → LiteDB 4
  • 8 → LiteDB 5
• Encrypted LiteDB 5 files are detected by checking buffer[0] == 1

📂 File structure detection

Version	Offset	Value
Header	25 (v4) / 32 (v5)	** This is a LiteDB file **
Version	52 (v4) / 59 (v5)	7 or 8
Encrypted	0	1 if file is encrypted (v5+)

📜 License

MIT — Free for personal and commercial use.

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Contributions welcome! If LiteDB won't merge it, let's improve it together here 😉