Classloading in .NET

[nelsonbrodyk]

Hey All,
In java, I can drop a jar into the Java classpath, and when a class is called that hasn't been loaded yet, it will automatically load the class because the jar is in the classpath. Note this is all done internally through Java.

Does .NET offer such a mechanism? My Challenge is I have a directory of dll's, and I just want them to be loaded when they are needed, without me having to say Assembly.Load.

I'm hoping there is a similar mechanism!

Thanks!

[nelsonbrodyk]

Anyone have any ideas on this? What is the recommended approach in .NET?

[Frinavale]

This is not done automatically for you in .NET.
You are going to have to look into dynamically loading assemblies using reflection at run time. Check out the Assembly.Load method for more information on how to do this.

-Frinny

[Plater]

Well now what about the "global assembly cache"(GAC)? I'm not sure how to "work it", but I think you can do something sneaky with that

[nelsonbrodyk]

hmm good points, thanks for the thoughts!

[balabaster]

Well now what about the "global assembly cache"(GAC)? I'm not sure how to "work it", but I think you can do something sneaky with that

Yeah, adding a DLL to the GAC means that you just have to add a project reference to your application... although, that still requires it to be early loaded you can't lazy load a DLL directly that way... at least, not as far as I'm aware.