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Introduction To Assembly In .Net

In this post we will talk about assembly. Let us start with the definition – ‘An assembly is a collection of types and resources that are built to work together and form a logical unit of functionality.’ (Ref https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hk5f40ct(v=vs.90).aspx)

There are 2 types of assemblies in .net

Single file assembly – An assembly which contains a single file and manifest is also incorporated in the same file.

Picture showing the pictorical representation of the single file assembly

Click to Enlarge

Multi file assembly – An assembly which contains more than one file is called multi-file assembly. In case of multi-file assembly, there could be a standalone manifest file.

Picture showing the pictorical representation of the multi file assembly

Click to Enlarge

.Net Assembly Contents

A .Net assembly contains following elements

Assembly manifest – The metadata which describes assembly and contents
Type metadata – Defines type, method and property.
MSIL
Resources – like image, icons etc.

Assembly Versioning

The assembly version is represented in following format

<major_version>.<minor_version>.<build_number>.<revision>

Major version - Manually incremented for major releases, such as adding many new features to the solution.
Minor version - Manually incremented for minor releases, such as introducing small changes to existing features.
Build – Automatically increases when recompiling the same code.
Revision – Incremented for hotfixes and patches

Difference Between Private Assembly And Shared Assembly

Private assembly is an assembly which is available exclusively to a particular application whereas shared assembly can be used by multiple applications.

We put shared assembly in a GAC.

Posted By -	Karan Gupta

Posted On -	Monday, April 6, 2015

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