why our build does not contain all the required dll's

Question

We have a .net 2008 application which uses two dll's to remote to a server to get information. the returned object. One of the properties of this object is an enum which is held in a third dll.

For some reason when we build the third dll is not being added, despite the fact i have now included all three dll's in the solution.

at runtime when the code deserialises the object we get a dll not found exception specifying that the dll is missing, for the dll in question, it contains only enums (not my design)

Any idea how i can force the dll to be added?

I can just add the dll as part of the harness or service but I shouldn't have to as it should be picked up as a dependency of the main project

Answer 1

Do you have the "Copy Local" flag set to true in the reference properites?

Answer 2

use post-build event command to add the dll into your bin directory.

Answer 3

That's because you don't need the DLL. An enum assignment gets compiled to its numeric value, there is no reference the type in the IL. For example, this:

public enum Numbers { Zero, One, Two, Three }

static void Main(string[] args) {
  var n = Numbers.One;
}

gets compiled to this:

  IL_0001:  ldc.i4.1          ; NOTE: constant 1 being used here
  IL_0002:  stloc.0

The compiler automatically filters out "using" directives for assemblies that are not actually used.

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Apparently you've found a wrinkle in this, it is very important that you put details like this in your question. Yes, binary serialization will put a type reference in the serialized data, something the compiler cannot see. The only workaround for this is to ensure the assembly gets copied into the build directory. Project + Add Existing Item, navigate to the DLL. Select it in the Solution Explorer window, set the Copy to Output Directory property to "Copy if Newer".