How to get the assembly (System.Reflection.Assembly) for a given type in .Net?

Question

In .Net, given a type name, is there a method that tells me in which assembly (instance of System.Reflection.Assembly) that type is defined?

I assume that my project already has a reference to that assembly, just need to know which one it is.

Answer 1

Type.GetType(typeNameString).Assembly

Answer 2

Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(System.Int32))

Replace System.Int32 with whatever type you happen to need. Because it accepts a Type parameter, you can do just about anything this way, for instance:

string GetAssemblyLocationOfObject(object o) {
    return Assembly.GetAssembly(o.GetType()).Location;
}

Answer 3

Assembly.GetAssembly assumes you have an instance of the type, and Type.GetType assumes you have the fully qualified type name which includes assembly name.

If you only have the base type name, you need to do something more like this:

public static String GetAssemblyNameContainingType(String typeName) 
{
 foreach (Assembly currentassembly in AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies()) 
 {
  Type t = currentassembly.GetType(typeName, false, true);
  if (t != null) {return currentassembly.FullName;}
 }

 return "not found";
}

This also assumes your type is declared in the root. You would need to provide the namespace or enclosing types in the name, or iterate in the same manner.

Answer 4

If you can use it, this syntax is the shortest/cleanest:

typeof(int).Assembly