Searching for types

[Michael S.]

Hi there,

If I call "System.Type.GetType()", passing in the assembly-qualified name of
the type to search for, how can I go about controlling where .NET will look
for the assembly containing the type. Assuming I'm not using strong names
for instance (no GAC involved), and I pass the following string for example:

"SomeNamespacee.SomeDialog, SomeApp, Version=1.0.2896.22054,
Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null"

I now want "System.Type.GetType()" to look for the "SomeApp" assembly in a
given folder that I can control at runtime (instead of or in addition to my
app's start-up folder). Thanks in advance.

[Mattias Sjögren]

>I now want "System.Type.GetType()" to look for the "SomeApp" assembly in a
given folder that I can control at runtime (instead of or in addition to my
app's start-up folder). Thanks in advance.

You can also first load the assembly from the location you want (using
Assembly.LoadFrom) and then call Assembly.GetType on that instance.
Mattias

--
Mattias Sjögren [C# MVP] mattias @ mvps.org
http://www.msjogren.net/dotnet/ | http://www.dotnetinterop.com
Please reply only to the newsgroup.

[Michael S.]

You can also first load the assembly from the location you want (using

Assembly.LoadFrom) and then call Assembly.GetType on that instance.

Thanks. Unfortunately, the assembly-qualified strings I need to call
"GetType()" on are arbitary strings I don't know about ahead of time. I want
my users to be able to set a search folder in my app (via "Tools ->
Options") and calls to "GetType()" will then look in that folder
automatically. I just need to instruct the system to look there accordingly.

[Michael S.]

I think that in this case, you will have to manually load the assembly

into your app domain (the one you are running in, or another one,
depending on your program) and call the static LoadFile method on the
Assembly to get the CLR to load your assembly, then call GetType, passing
the assembly qualified name.

Yeah, it's looking that way. I'm digging into the docs now but may provide a
follow-up later if I can't unravel this myself. Thanks again for your help.