I have a class library project that i have made. Let's call it ClassA. In ClassA i need to access some tools that reside in dll (ToolsDLL.dll).
In ClassA I have added ToolsDLL.dll to the project and selected the ToolsDLL.dll file to Copy To Output directory ALWAYS. So that library builds and compiles just fine and in the output directory i see ClassA.dll along with ToolsDLL.dll
Next, I want to write an application, say App_A that uses the methods in ClassA. So, in my App_A project, I added a reference to ClassA.dll so that I can access it's namespace. All is well and good, it build/compiles.
The problem is as soon as I run App_A and it gets to a point where ToolsDLL.dll needs to be used it throws an exception "Unable to Load ToolsDLL.dll. I don't understand how it is possible that it can't find that dll because it is in the same directory as ClassA.dll.
I found that if i put ToolsDLL.dll in the output directory of App_A it works just fine. Is there any way around that? Is there any way that ToolsDll.dll can be somehow bundled with ClassA.dll. The reason is that my customers will be writing their own applications similar to AppA and it would be nice if they only had to reference one file in their project and not multiple.
There's a tool from Microsoft called ILMerge. It will probably do what you want, bundling several assemblies into one file.
P.S.: Another, fairly frequently used solution to your problem would be to add a post-build event to your application's solution/project that copies the required ToolsDLL.dll over to the output directory? Something along the line of:
xcopy /y /d $(SolutionDir)\lib\ToolsDLL.dll $(OutputDir)\ToolsDLL.dll
(Sorry if I get some of it wrong, I'm typing this from my memory.)
Of course, your customer would also have to do this. But then again they've probably done this before.
Have you added the DLL to the project, or have you actually added a reference to it? You should do the latter, then this sort of thing is taken care of automatically for you. It sounds like you have added the actual file to the project files, and set it to copy.
If you do definitely want a single file approach, then accept the others' suggestions of ILMerge obviously...
You can use ILMerge to combine assemblies into one DLL.
https://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/mbarnett/ilmerge.aspx
You can either use an IL merging tool, or install ToolsDLL.dll in the GAC.
Also if you look at the output of App_A, ClassA.dll is already there, that's where it's looking for ToolsDLL.dll.
Related
According to http://blogs.msdn.com/b/junfeng/archive/2005/02/12/371683.aspx I should be able to create a single .exe file build from some source code and a .netmodule file. However, after looking at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/92b5ab4h.aspx and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/k669k83h.aspx I cannot seem to make this happen. Whenever I run my .exe it is looking for the .netmodule externally.
Does anyone know of any example showing which options I have to pass to csc to make this do what I want?
For example I have, common.netmodule and program.cs, and I want a single file program.exe that has common.netmodule in the assembly.
After rethinking things, I decided to solve the problem at the source code level. Instead of compiling a common.netmodule file, I just have Maven copy my common.cs file into the project specific directories, and then compile. It works, it's simple, and I cannot believe I wasted so much time trying to figure out the abstruse details of .Net assemblies.
I need to add dll files (The XNA Framework) to a C# project and then be able to use them properly. This is so that I can send my solution to another person who doesn't have XNA installed and still have the project compile and run.
I'm trying to do this as part of a test, I need to program a game and then send the code to a person who will mark it. I am allowed to use public libraries but the project must compile without any additional steps on the marker's part.
Any additional information required don't hesitate to ask.
Thanks!
It's a best practice to create a folder solution called "lib" and add all libraries used in your project to that folder. And yes, if you redistribute your solution paths will match.
You can also use NuGet (if you've got VS 2010+). You will need to modify the location for where the 'packages' folder gets stored.
To do this, take a look at this link : Is it possible to change the location of packages for NuGet?
The advantage to this is that you will be told when an update is available for the package.
I have a Visual Studio 2010 C# project which creates an .exe and this project is using some 3rd party class library.
My project is located in: /MyFramWork/tests/test1
3rd party library is located at: /MyFrameWork/bin/utils/
I am adding the reference to the library by using References->Add Reference->Browse. I can see that in the project file all is fine:
....\bin\utils\log4net.dll
False
I would like to reference the 3rd party library without using the option "Copy Local". However if I don't use the option, the library is not found and I get an exception.
My question is: Is there a way to specify that the 3rd party library should be found at ....\bin\utils. It seems that when the .exe gets build the information from the .csproj gets lost.
By default, .NET apps look for their dependencies in only two places: the EXE directory, and the GAC (Global Assembly Cache).
You have three choices:
You can make sure the dependency gets copied into the same directory as your EXE (this is what Copy Local does). This is the best choice most of the time, which is why it's the default when you reference an assembly that's not already in the GAC.
You can install your dependency into the GAC using gacutil. This might be a good choice if your dependency isn't going to change, is going to be in a different location on every development machine (i.e. if relative paths won't work well), and if you want to use it from many different projects. But it's a major pain if the dependency is still under active development and changing frequently. You'll also need to make sure to put the DLL into the GAC on every computer you deploy your app to.
You can customize the dependency-loading behavior so it looks in other places, as Hans noted in his comment. This is an advanced option and comes with a whole new set of headaches.
Normally, you would just use Copy Local; it's a very sensible default. You should need a fairly compelling reason to do anything different.
Use the <probing> element to specify where the CLR should search for your assemblies. The only restriction is that the assemblies must be located in subdirectories of your application's base directory.
For example, if your application base directory is C:\MyFramework, then you could have your assemblies in C:\MyFramework\bin.
Have a look at this article to learn how the CLR searches for assemblies.
If you need to load assemblies from custom locations, you could try the Assembly.LoadFile Method.
The following links may be useful:
C# - Correct Way to Load Assembly, Find Class and Call Run() Method
http://www.csharp-examples.net/reflection-examples/
It's me Potzon. I am still investigating this incredibly silly problem.
I have been hoping for some elegant solution. I am about to build fairly large framework with lots of assemblies which would be placed inside /Framework/bin/. However I wanted to have some directory structure inside the the directory, for example /bin/utils, /bin/test, /bin/devices/ and so on.
One possible solution that I have found is to define environmental variable DEVPATH (see here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cskzh7h6.aspx) but it turns out that .net4 is not using this variable when an assembly is run independently (outside the visual studio), or at least this is the case for me - I can't make it work.
It seems that the solution to put all the assemblies inside the /bin directory without using sub-directories is the best. I think I will give up and just do it this way.
Is there a way to keep any DLLs needed for my Visual C# program (such as SQLite) inside the actual EXE so it doesn't require the files to be present?
If not, can anyone show me how to make a wrapper for my program (independent of .NET, so maybe C++?) to copy/load required files to the working directory before starting the program itself.
What I intend to end up with is a single EXE file that can be deployed anywhere and set itself up like a transformer. All it requires is the following criteria:
SQLite is present
OpenHardwareMonitorLib is present
.NET 2.0 is installed (if not, offer install with redistributable package)
Microsoft provide a tool for merging DLLs. It's called ILMerge.
It doesn't always work, I believe certain things can cause problems. But it's definitely the easier option!
If the problem is redistribute only one file, you can create a "installer" exe, that unpack all your dependencies (from executable content).
If you don't want to leave all dlls in your production environment, you can merge all IL code in the main executable. you can use ILMerge (but it's not the only product that can do this)
You can merge the dependencies into the main executable. After your build completes you run an additional tool that combines the IL code into a single assembly.
ILMerge can do this but is a bit cumbersome to use.
Some (proprietary) tools can do this as well. I know of at least one obfuscator (DeepSea) that can do this. DeepSea also allows you to specify what you want to include and what types you want to expose from the resulting assembly.
Full disclosure: I know the guys that build DeepSea Obfuscator.
I guess you could embed the target assemblies as resources and then unpack them in some custom assembly resolution code?
Edit: there's an example of this here: Embedding assemblies inside another assembly
I created a brand new blank Visual Studio 2010 solution, and added an existing C# Project to it. I built the solution and it compiled correctly.
But when I go the solution folder, I see that the imported C# project is not physically in that folder. It seems it only references the project to wherever it is.
Is this intended? Should I even worry about this?
How can I create a physical import, meaning the project is copied to the solution folder?
How can I create a physical import, meaning the project is copied to the solution folder?
If you want to do this, copy the project to the solution (outside of VS), then add the local copy directly.
The default behavior allows you to share a project between two solutions. This is occasionally useful (if handled with care).
'How do I create a physical import?'
You don't - you're adding a project to the solution which will always result in referencing it in-place. In order to structure your solution you need to copy or move the existing project to the desired folder, created any desired Solution Folders to match the physical structure and then Add existing project as needs be.
The other alternative is to Add new project and then copy all of your project data over from the existing one but this will be prone to errors at some levels.
Adding an existing project always makes reference to the original. That makes sense in a lot of cases. If you want to use the project in a number of solutions and you want to make sure that they are always using the same version then you have the choice to either just reference the compiled library or have it available in each solution. If you do have it available in each solution then the risk is that you will make some mod of it in one solution that breaks the others. I am pretty good at doing this!
As mentioned already if you want to modify that project and don't mind if it gets out of sync with other versions of it then you need to copy it into your solution folder and then add it from there.
The version control software I use pretty much forces me to do that as it does not like code that is not located inside the solution tree.