Determining the Assembly of a subclass with a method in the base class

Question

Say I have a base class in Assembly A:

public class MyBaseClass{
    public static Assembly GetMyAssembly(){
     //determine the Assembly of my subclasses
    }
}

Then I create a subclass of that class within Assembly B:

public class MySubClass : MyBaseClass {
}

From there, in my domain specific logic I invoke MySubClass.GetMyAssembly(). This logic may be in the same assembly as MySubClass OR it could be in a separate assembly. How can I determine the assembly containing the subclass that invoking the inherited method? (without overriding it) I have tried to use the different Assembly.Get*() methods in System.Reflection without any luck.

Answer 1

I'd recommend, rather than using the Assembly.Get*() methods, you take a look at the Type object itself - it has some very useful properties and methods:

this.GetType().BaseType.Assembly;

If you're looking to simply get the assembly of a specific base class, you'll need to use typeof(MyBaseClass).Assembly - since your class should be aware of its inheritance chain, I don't think it will be an issue.

Answer 2

You can't. This static method really does live in the assembly that has the base type.

The best you could do is use an instance method (omit the static keyword) so the code has access to the this reference. The this.GetType() expression gives you the derived type. Its Assembly property gives you the assembly that contains the derived type.