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Get Assembly Type Names Without Loading The Assembly

Neo
Does anyone know how to get a list of the types in an Assembly without
actually loading the Assembly into your app domain?

Oct 24 '05 #1
11 10916
Does anyone know how to get a list of the types in an Assembly without
actually loading the Assembly into your app domain?


Yes, by using a metadata reading library other than Reflection.
Microsoft provides a COM API, and there are some other available (with
C# source code) online.
Mattias

--
Mattias Sjögren [MVP] mattias @ mvps.org
http://www.msjogren.net/dotnet/ | http://www.dotnetinterop.com
Please reply only to the newsgroup.
Oct 24 '05 #2
MUS
Hello Neo !

You can do it with "Type.GetType() " but before diving into the
programming world you need to remember following points;

1) If you are using "Type.GetType(< YOUR_TYPE>)" i.e. no assembly is
specified runtime will only look for the type in the calling assembly
and then in mscorlib.dll.

2) If you have a weak assembly i.e. NOT Strong-Named .. for runtime to
look for your type in any other assembly, you need to make a call such
as, Type.GetType(<Y our_Type>, <Your_Assembly> ); i.e. for example if
you have a type
"MyTestLib.MyCl ass" in an assembly "MyTestLib" then you need to make a
call like this Type.GetType("M yTestLib.MyClas s, MyTestLib");. Reason is
simple, "part of type identity is the assembly".

3) For Strong-Named assembly you need to specify the information in the
following format: "<Your_Type >, <Assembly_Which _Contains_Your_ Type>,
<Assembly_Versi on>, <Assembly_Cultu re>, <Public_Key_Tok en>, <Custom>".
For your convenience, below is an example that loads the
"System.Windows .Forms.Shortcut " type and then prints on the console
all the fields name.

<code>
private String SHORTCUT_TYPE_S TRING = "System.Windows .Forms.Shortcut ,
System.Windows. Forms, Version=1.0.500 0.0, Culture=neutral ,
PublicKeyToken= b77a5c561934e08 9, Custom=null";
Type type = Type.GetType(th is.SHORTCUT_TYP E_STRING);
if(type.IsEnum)
{
FieldInfo[] fields = type.GetFields( );
foreach(FieldIn fo field in fields)
{
if(field.FieldT ype.Name=="Shor tcut")
{
Console.Writeli ne(field.Name);
}
}
}
</code>

NOTE: But you need to remember onething that assembly WILL GET LOADED
but it will be transparent to you.

You explicitly WONT need to load the assembly by using any of the 3
static methods of Assembly type i.e. "Assembly.Load( )" or
"Assembly.LoadF rom()" or "Assembly.LoadF ile()" and then with the loaded
assembly reference get the desired type information as,
<Loaded_Assembl y_Reference>.Ge tType(<Your_Typ e>);

Hope this might be of some help.

Let me know in case of any inconsistancy.

Have a good day.

Regards,

Moiz Uddin Shaikh
Software Engineer
Kalsoft (Pvt) Ltd

Oct 25 '05 #3
Neo
Thank you but all of these methods will load the assembly. I This won't
work for me. A lot of times I am loading multiple versions/builds of
the same assembly which causes a crash these assemblies are never
linked in at build time.

However all I need from them is the type names I don't need to execute
any code.

Oct 25 '05 #4
Neo
What is this COM API called?

Oct 25 '05 #5
Neo
What is this COM API called?

Oct 25 '05 #6
Neo
What is this COM API called?

Oct 25 '05 #7
You may find following utility helpful in solving your problem -
(Finding types without loading Assembly),

http://blogs.ineta.org/devin/archive.../07/19424.aspx

regards,
Khurram Shakir
MVP Visual C#

Neo wrote:
What is this COM API called?


Oct 25 '05 #8
Well, then create a new AppDomain, load the assembly in that appdomain
to get the type information and the unload the AppDomain which will
unload the assembly!

Oct 25 '05 #9
And, if you are using VS2005, you can use ReflectionOnlyL oad to load an
assembly for reflection only.

Oct 25 '05 #10

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