---
title: "Cool trick of the day - VSS keyword expansion"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/10/14/cool-trick-of-the-day-vss-keyword-expansion.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/10/14/cool-trick-of-the-day-vss-keyword-expansion.html"
published: "2003-10-14T12:35:00"
updated: "2003-10-14T12:35:00"
tags: [".Net Quotations", "Tips & Tricks"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "Well, I certainly didn't know about this cool VSS feature! turn this: '$History: Form1.vb $ ' into this: '***************** Version 24 ***************** 'User: Guest Date: 10/13/03 Time: 12:49p 'Updated in…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Cool trick of the day - VSS keyword expansion

By Roy Osherove October 14, 2003 In [.Net Quotations](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-quotations), [Tips & Tricks](https://osherove.com/blog/category/tips-tricks)

**Historical article** · Originally published October 14, 2003; technical details may be outdated.

Well, I certainly didn't know about [this cool](http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/korbyp/permalink.aspx/1ce61a2c-a88b-484e-b9d8-c16f163337a3) VSS feature!

**turn this:**

_'$History: Form1.vb $
'
_

**into this:**

_'\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*  Version 24  \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
'User: Guest        Date: 10/13/03   Time: 12:49p
'Updated in
'$/WindowsApplication8.root/WindowsApplication8_

## More in .Net Quotations

[All posts in .Net Quotations](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-quotations)

- Oct 29, 2003

    ### [New VB.Net features from the trenches, and the PDCBloggers feed is your friend](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/10/29/new-vbnet-features-from-the-trenches-and-the-pdcbloggers-fee.html)

- Oct 27, 2003

    ### [Nice GC tip](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/10/27/nice-gc-tip.html)

- Oct 6, 2003

    ### [More than 500 sample chapters](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/10/6/more-than-500-sample-chapters.html)

- Oct 6, 2003

    ### [Getting a focus on performance - some new pages](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/10/6/getting-a-focus-on-performance-some-new-pages.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/