Is there any reason for it is not possible with Visual Studio to remove unused references (to projects and assemblies) in C# and C++ projects while it is possible to do so from a Visual Basic project (see here)?
I know you can do it with other tools like Resharper, I was just wondering if there was any technical reason for not being able to do this in C# and C++ projects? Or did Microsoft just choose it to work like that. It seems to be a quite useful feature.
Note that the compiler will automatically drop any unused references from the assembly, so at the assembly metadata level this is redundant. It then just becomes an IDE/tooling issue. Would it be impossible? no (although obviously it would need to keep any that are marked for copy-local, to ensure it gets deployed). We can probably assume, therefore, that it is simply a "time to implement vs utility" (compared to other more useful things that could be done).
I'm sure you could write an IDE extension for it if you wanted ;p
I found this suggestion on Microsoft Connect. It sounds like Microsoft actually thinks it is a good idea but just did not have the "time" (read: priority) to implement it. Too bad!
This functionality is there for VB (via the "Unused References" button on the References property page).But is the case of CSharp, For example, a user could add a reference to an assembly in order for it to get copied to the output directory. They might be using the assembly via reflection instead of compiling against it -- in such cases, there is no way for VS to detect that such an assembly is "used". So designing such algorithm is not 100% successful. But flag is a option that assembly mark as "unused" (however, the user would still have the choice as to whether to remove the assembly from the list of references).
Remove unused namespaces can do a bit work towards this.
Related
I wrote a windows application using C# .Net 2.0 and i want to do something which hide the source code, so when any one use refactor tool can't see the source code.
I used dotfuscator but it just changed the function names but not all the source code.
UPDATE:
I want to hide the source code, not because of hiding the key, but to hide how the code is working.
Thanks,
IL is by definition very expressive in terms of what remains in the body; you'll just have to either:
find a better (read: more expensive) obfuscator
keep the key source under your control (for example, via a web-service, so key logic is never at the client).
Well, the source code is yours and unless you explicitly provide it, youll perobably only be providing compiled binaries.
Now, these compiled binaries are IL code. To prevent someone "decompiling" and reverse engineering your IL code back to source code, you'll need to obfuscate the IL code. This is done with a code obfuscator. There are many in the marketplace.
You've already done this with dotfuscator, however, you say that it only changed the function names, not all the source code. It sounds like you're using the dotfuscator edition that comes with Visual Studio. This is effectively the "community edition" and only contains a subset of the functionality of the "professional edition". Please see this link for a comparison matrix of the features of the community edition and the professional edition.
If you want more obfuscation of your code (specifically to protect against people using tools such as Reflector), you'll need the professional edition of Dotfuscator, or another code obfuscator product that contains similar functionality.
As soon as people get a hand on your binaries they can reverse-engineer it. It’s easier with languages that are compiled to bytecode (C# and Java) and it’s harder with languages that are compiled to CPU-specific binaries but it’s always possible. Face it.
Try SmartAssembly
http://www.smartassembly.com/index.aspx
There are limits to the lengths obfuscation software can go to to hide the contents of methods, fundamentally changing the internals without affecting the correctness (and certainly performance) is extremely hard.
It is notable that code with many small methods tends to become far harder to understand once obfuscated, especially when techniques for sharing names between methods that would appear to collide to the eye but not to the runtime are employed.
Some obfuscators allow the generation of constructs which are not representable in any of the target languages, the set of all operations allowable in CIL for example is way more than that expressible through c# or even C++/CLI. However this often requires an explicit setting to enable (since it can cause problems). This can cause decompilers to fail, but some will just do their best and work around it (perhaps inlining the il it cannot handle).
If you distribute the pdb's with the app then even more can inferred due to the additional symbols.
Just symbol renaming is not enough of a hindrance to reverse-engineering your app. You also need control flow obfuscation, string encryption, resource protection, meta data reduction, anti-reflector defenses, etc, etc. Try Crypto Obfuscator which supports all this and more.
Create a setup project for your application and install the setup on your friends computer like a software. There are 5 steps to creating the setup project using microsoft visual studio.
Step 1: Create a Sample .Net Project. I have named this project as "TestProject" after that build your project in release mode.
Step 2: Add New Project using right click on your solution and select setup project and give the name this as "TestSetup".
Step 3: Right click on setup project and Add primary Output and select your project displayed.
Step 4: Right Click the setup project and select View-> File System -> Application Folder. Now copy what you want to be in installation folder.
Step 5: Now go to our project folder and open the release folder you can get the setup.exe file here. Double click on the "TestSetup" file and install your project to your and other computer.
I have a need to identify if I'm referencing a specific assembly in my project/solution. I've not found an easy way to do this (I want to do it at design time and not run time if possible).
Seems this should be easy, but I'm not finding a way in VS, directly. Ideally, if I could see what/where I'm referencing (assuming that I am) would be great, too, so I can remove such references from my code.
Simply searching for "Assembly." in my code turns up nothing, now, for example.
A concrete example is in order: I want to know if I use anything in System.Reflection.Assembly. And I'd like to find the code that does it (in my source) if I do.
Do you want something like Assembly.GetReferencedAssemblies Method ?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.reflection.assembly.getreferencedassemblies(v=vs.110).aspx
In Visual Studio (almost all versions) open the Solution Explorer window the second "folder" is the References section. If you expand that you'll be able to see the referenced assemblies.
Image from robowiki
I develop WinForms applications.
How can I understand which references that I have added to my application are in use, and which ones are unused?
If I don't remove unused references, will they degrade my application performance?
Unused references will not cause any performance loss when you run your application. Your references are used at compile time to look up unknown symbols.
It is just extra information given to your compiler; telling it where to look for symbols. When the compilation is over, it is no longer needed.
One way to see if reference is used by your code (without external tools) is to simply remove that reference and compile.
Used in the code? You'll get nice error message, just add it back.
Not used? Compile succeed and you can leave it removed.
If the reference is to your own project in the same Solution and there are few classes only, you can right click each class in Visual Studio and choose Find All References - if something is referencing that class you'll see it.
You can use extensions for VS. You can find them in VS Gallery. You can try this one:
Reference Assistant
IN VS2008, for C#, How can I figure out which references are needed and which are not?
If you look in the solution explorer for a certain project and expand the references folder, is there a way to tell those that are never called? Will this be determined at compile time and simply not included?
Looks like Resharper is it. However I wouldn't worry too much about it as the unused assemblies are ignored by the compiler.
If they're not needed, the compiler won't add them to the assembly's manifest so it doesn't really hurt to have them there.
If you want to be obsessive-compulsive about it (like I often am :) then you can just delete one, rebuild and if there's an error add it back. If there's no errors, move on to the next one. The downside to doing that is if you delete a reference that you're not using now but you want to use it later, you have to remember which classes are in which assembly (e.g. if you delete System.Core, then you have to remember that System.Linq stuff is in there if you ever decide to use it later)
Reflector to the rescue again!
File > Open > Your assembly
Right-click the assembly in the left pane and select Analyze
In the right pane, expand Depends On
This will generate a list of all of the assemblies it depends on, and all of their dependencies, all the way down to the turtles.
Stephan Brenner created an small tool to do that (http://www.stephan-brenner.com/?p=56) and
If you want to create a solution for checking that in code there is an old post in MSDN (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163641.aspx) which does that. I hope this helps you.
How can I access the currently opened project's types(classes) from a Visual Studio add-in(be able to create instances of those classes within the add-in)? Is this possible through reflection? Or maybe dynamically include the project's assembly as a reference?
What I'd like to have in the end is a list of all types accessible from the project, taking into account referenced assemblies and types declared in the project itself. In absence of a method to actually find Type instances, a list of type names may do - this way, I won't run into problems if the project is not yet built and the types therein are not yet implemented.
I use Visual Studio 2008 and the language I prefer is C#.
Edit: I imagine I could parse each file and seek out class declarations, but I'd like to consider types from referenced assemblies as well. The references may be sought after by searching for "using" statements, but that leaves dynamically imported dll types an open issue. Thus, given the branching of separate situations to consider, I'm wondering if there isn't an easier way.
Sure, just get the assembly from the output directory and load it. I am not working on any EnvDTE projects right now so I can't just pop in and knock out a sample, but that is how you would be able to enumerate/instantiate classes.
But.... nobugz is hinting that something smells.. What are you trying to do? There may be a 'better' way to do it.
The Visual Studio code model offers automation clients the ability to discover code definitions in a project and modify those code elements.
For more information go to:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228763(VS.80).aspx