Listing down .netassembly names

Question

How many assembles do we have in .NET 3.5? Can I list them down For eg: System; System.Windows.Forms and so on...Please help with code in C#

Answer 1

What is the use of this other than being just a statistic? You do not have to include all of them in one single application anyway!

Answer 2

I need to display the list to my students..they are interested in seeing if it can be done and if we can list only the assembles(class names) of .net 3.5

Answer 3

take a look at gac c:\windows\assemblies

Answer 4

You can download the .NET Framework 3.5 Common Namespaces and Types Poster on Microsoft's website.

Answer 5

isnt there any way to display it using reflection? I just need the class names in .net 3.5

Answer 6

Here's a quick program to search C:\Windows\assembly\ for all .dll assemblies and output the ones with a version of 3.5:

// Get all "*.dll" files from "C:\Windows\assembly".
string windowsDirectory = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable( "windir" );
string assemblyDirectory = Path.Combine( windowsDirectory, "assembly" );
string[] assemblyFiles = Directory.GetFiles(
  assemblyDirectory, "*.dll", SearchOption.AllDirectories
);

// Get version of each file (ignoring policy, integration, and design files).
var versionedFiles =
  from path in assemblyFiles
  let filename = Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension( path )
  where !filename.StartsWith( "policy" ) 
     && !filename.EndsWith( ".ni" ) 
     && !filename.EndsWith( ".Design" )
  let versionInfo = System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo( path )
  select new { Name = filename, Version = versionInfo.FileVersion };

// Select all 3.5 assemblies.
var assembliesIn3_5 = versionedFiles
  .Where( file => file.Version.StartsWith( "3.5" ) )
  .OrderBy( file => file.Name );

foreach( var file in assembliesIn3_5 )
  Console.WriteLine( "{0,-50} {1}", file.Name, file.Version );

Based on this PowerShell query:

dir C:\Windows\assembly -filter *.dll -recurse | 
  ? { [Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo]::GetVersionInfo($_.FullName).FileVersion.StartsWith('3.5.') } | 
  % { [IO.Path]::GetFileNameWithoutExtension($_.Name) } | 
  ? { -not $_.EndsWith('.ni') } | 
  sort

Also, you mind find Hanselman's Changes in the .NET BCL between 2.0 and 3.5 post useful.