views:

196

answers:

3

what is the need of assembly ? why we use them? is it possible to program without an assembly? is the assembly is created automatically? suppose i develop an asp.net web project is there any assembly involved? could you list example?

+2  A: 

Assemblies are useful because they give us a standard way of putting types into a single file. Assemblies also contain metadata tables that describe the types that are contained within it which aid in development and compiling against them.

I would suggest that you read Assemblies:

Assemblies are the building blocks of .NET Framework applications; they form the fundamental unit of deployment, version control, reuse, activation scoping, and security permissions. An assembly is a collection of types and resources that are built to work together and form a logical unit of functionality. An assembly provides the common language runtime with the information it needs to be aware of type implementations. To the runtime, a type does not exist outside the context of an assembly.

And Assembly Benefits:

Assemblies are designed to simplify application deployment and to solve versioning problems that can occur with component-based applications.

Andrew Hare
A: 

Do you mean Assemblies, or "Assembler Language"?

Moshe
Would have been more appropriate as a comment, not an answer.
musicfreak
Fair point. Thank you.
Moshe
+3  A: 

To quote the MSDN article on assemblies: "Assemblies are the building blocks of .NET Framework applications; they form the fundamental unit of deployment, version control, reuse, activation scoping, and security permissions. An assembly is a collection of types and resources that are built to work together and form a logical unit of functionality."

An assembly in .NET is a unit of code that has been compiled together into a single executable, library, or module. Whenever you compile code, you will generate an assembly. I do not believe there is a way to use .NET code without using an assembly.

You can use reflection to learn about the types in an assembly as well as other metadata.

antonm
CCI and Cecil can also be used to analyze assemblies, and they have many advantages over reflection.
Lex Li