What is function of each file in a simple C# project? - c#

I want to ask about the files that are found in the folder of a simple C# Project .
like
(.pdb file , .vshost file , .manifest file ) in bin folder
( .csproj.fileListAbsolute.txt file , .pdb file ) in debug folder
(AssemblyInfo.cs ) in Properties folder
what is the function of each file of them ?
and which of them is in MSIL , if there is no file of them in this language how can I get file in MSIL ?
another question : what is the specific part that converts C# code into MSIL ?? , Is it the C# Compiler ? Is there any specific name to it ?

Technically, the pdb, vshost, and manifest file are not part of a C# project, the are part of the output generated when you build the project.
The PDB file contains symbol information used by the debugger to associate code within the assembly with your sources files. This allows the debugger to identify which line of source code corresponds a set of instruction in the MSIL of an assembly.
The vshost.exe file is a hosting process that visual studio generates that helps accelerate the debugging of an application. It caches app domain for your process to reduce the startup time for the debugger.
The manifest file contains information about the assemblies in a project and some common metadata about them. Its contents varies by project type.
The csproj file is xml-based representation of the code and resources for a project. It's the file that Visual Studio uses to figure out what code and resuorces to compile into an assembly. This file also contains project settings and options that control how the compiler (and other tools) process the assets of a project.
None of these files contains MSIL. The MSIL is part of the .exe and .dll files generated when you build a project. These files are encoded using the Microsoft PE (portable executable) format, and contain resources, data, and MSIL code.
The exe and dll, and pdb files are generated by the C# compiler - csc.exe. The other files (IIRC) are generated by other tools invoked by the msbuild process that controls the entire build cycle.

The executable (exe) or assembly (dll) will contain code in MSIL. The MSIL can be viewed using a tool like ILDASM or .NET Reflector. The C# compiler is csc.exe.

Here's a quick list:
PDB - These are debugging symbols used by Visual Studio and other debuggers.
VSHOST - This is a special executable that's hosted by Visual Studio (hence the name) I think this is used to provide intellisense and debugging help (e.g. breakpoints).
MANIFEST - Depends on the kind of project you're working on. Usually this file lets you specify special OS-level needs for your application (e.g. UAC admin rights... security model etc. etc.)
CSPROJ - Think of this as a Makefile/Buildfrile for your application. (CSPROJ means a CSharp Project) - This file list all the files necessary to build your application and also any extra processing steps (like a Makefile target) that might be necessary.
AssemblyInfo.cs - This is just a normal C# code file, but usually reserved for adding assembly-level attributes. (a .NET assembly metadata, as opposed to a normal EXE file metadata which is used by the operating system)
MSIL is Microsoft Intermediate Language which is an intermediate representation of the code resulting from compiling C# source code (or other .NET languages) using the C# compiler (csc.exe).
The .NET Runtime then interprets or JIT-compile the IL into actual machine code when you run the application.

Related

Which files do I need to distribute from a C# build?

When I build a C# application project named MyApplication with .NET 6.0 on Windows, I get the following files:
MyApplication.dll
MyApplication.exe
MyApplication.deps.json
MyApplication.dll.config
MyApplication.pdb
MyApplication.runtimeconfig.json
MyApplication.xml
Which of these files do I need to distribute?
MyApplication.dll contains the IL code of the application. I certainly need this one.
MyApplication.exe is the stub loader that starts the application. I do need this.
MyApplication.pdb contains the debug info. I don't need to distribute this.
But what about the others? They seem to contain some dependency information. But is that only required for the compiler, or is it required later at runtime? (My application consists of dozens of dll's).
From the spec of runtime configuration files
MyApp.dll - The managed assembly for MyApp, including an ECMA-compliant entry point token.
MyApp.exe - A copy of the corehost.exe executable.
MyApp.runtimeconfig.json - An optional configuration file containing runtime configuration settings.
MyApp.deps.json - A list of dependencies, as well as compilation context data and compilation dependencies. Not technically required, but required to use the servicing or package cache/shared package install features.
So while the json files are not strictly required, I would probably recommend including them.
The MyApplication.xml is an optional documentation file that contains comments for your dll. This is probably not needed if you are distributing an application and not a library, and there should be an option to turn of the generation of this file in your project properties.
You should also check the documentation for Deploying your application. I would especially consider the parts about self contained and single file publishing.

C# Project - Reference .pdb for native .dll

I have a solution containing a C# Forms project that creates a UI on top of a native .dll which contains most of my program's code.
I spend most of my time working on the native code reather than C#, which means that the DLL I'm loading through my C# UI project is modified very often, and so is it's associated .pdb file which I need for debugging what I do.
However it is not possible to reference a .pdb file like one would reference a .dll, so how could I make this .pdb be copied everytime it is modified ? Adding it as an existing item is just copying it and doesn't update it when the original .pdb file gets modified.
Two only solution I see is generating the .pdb file directly into the C#'s bin/debug instead of generating it inside the native .dll project, but I'm not sure this is possible. Second solution would be to add a link to that .pdb file into the project instead of the actual .pdb file, but I'm not sure that it would work any way.
Is there a workaround to this ? I couldn't find any. Thank you.
MSVC provides Build-Events (MSVC++ 2010: project's properties -> 'Configuration Properties' -> 'Build Events' – this exists for C# and in later MSVC versions, too, possibly at another location, however). You can define pre- and post-build events there (in case of C++, pre-link events, too).
You can call shell commands, call a batch script, or (if you have installed an appropriate interpreter) event perl or python scripts. From within such a script (either as post build for the dll, copying the .pdb file away, or – what I would prefer personally – from within the C# project as pre build event).

C# analysis fails without .pdb files

I'm trying out the new C# plugin v3.0 with SonarQube 4.2.
According to plugin documentation, I need .pdb files to run analysis which includes FxCop rules, and indeed I get a failure message when executing sonar-runner if said .pdb files are not present in the output folder; FxCop exits with code 1536.
The thing is, the analysis seems to require .pdb files for ALL the binnaries, and the output folder contains several dependencies in addition to my own compiled code. These are NuGet packages and I cannot find symbol files for all of them.
So, is there any way I can have the analysis to skip the files without debugging symbols?
The regular SonarQube file exclusion lists seem to apply to source code files only (e.g. *.designer.cs) and not for binnaries.
This is a bug on the SonarQube C# plugin side. I have created the following ticket to fix it: https://jira.codehaus.org/browse/SONARFXCOP-29
Note that this is not related to the presence of *.pdb files, but only on the presence of the referenced assemblies.

How to build a visual studio 2010 solution into a standalone dll?

I have a visual studio 2010 project, uses static and dynamic libs (.lib and .dll), the project is compiled and built successfully as .exe both in release and debug modes, the code is c and c++.
What is the right way to compile and wrapping all the solution to one standalone .dll file.
I want to have one dll file, I'll be able to load it in other c, c++, c# project safely.
in my case I want to load it in teraterm and in other simple self developed c# application.
Visual Studio has a C++ linker option called "Link Library Dependencies": http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/024awkd1(v=vs.90).aspx
This would link the object files from all projects in the solution directly into the project output (via dependency tracking). Be careful when you use this though, if you use this in an EXE and the DLLs you're linking export symbols your EXE will also export them.
Update:
Here's more detail: What happens is that instead of linking the DLLs (this assumes you have the DLLs you'd like to link set as dependencies of your project in the solution) to produce separate binaries, the linker takes the outputs from each individual project dependency and links them into the final executable/DLL directly, thus creating a monolithic DLL.
A side effect is that (depending on the code) the overall size of the output is reduced a little, the monolithic DLL (or EXE) might be large in general, but smaller in size than the individual output files combined due to link-time optimisations. Any symbols exported by the objects linked will be exported by the final DLL, since they are marked as such in the compilation step.
There's may be a catch, but being in VS2010, you should just click on the startup project, select 'properties' ->
'configuration properties' -> 'general' -> 'configuration type' -> set it to 'dynamic library (dll)'

Steps to create singlefile and multifile assembly?

I know a single file assembly consists of Manifest + IL + Resources. There is also an assembly type that groups its elements in multiple files, called a multi-file assembly. Visual Studio .NET IDE can only be used to create single-file assemblies, but Multifile assemblies can be created using command-line compilers.
This is all the information on the two types of assemblies that I could find, and google only returns http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/z38d5bzk(v=vs.71).aspx
But I am not satisfied and I cannot clearly say what both of them actually are. I want to know:
What exactly is single file assembly? How to create, steps to create, how does it look?
What exactly is multifile assembly?How to create, steps to create, how does it look?
Basically, a "single-file" assembly is an assembly that has everything contained in one file. This will be a file that has a .DLL or .EXE extension, and is the compiled .NET project. Visual studio creates these from C# projects (either library or application).
With command line compilers, you can split an assembly into multiple parts - where a single assembly's Manifest contains the information required to find information that's part of the assembly, but stored in a separate file. For example, you can keep a resource image (ie: a .bmp) that is a large resource in its own file, so that it isn't necessary to load it just to open the assembly. Creation of multi-file assemblies is not supported by Visual Studio, but these will look like a DLL or EXE, plus zero or more netmodule files, plus zero or more resource files (which can be anything). The main DLL or EXE contains the manifest that specifies where the other files are located. The steps required to build this are detailed in How to: Build a Multifile Assembly.

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