Website --> Add Reference also creates files with pdb extensions

Question

Hello,

Q1 Any assemblies stored in Bin directory will automatically be referenced by web application. We can add assembly reference via Website --> Add Reference or simply by copying dll into Bin folder. But I noticed that when we add reference via Website --> Add Reference, that additional files with .pdb extension are placed inside Bin. If these files are also needed, then why does reference still work even if we only place referenced dll into Bin, but not pdb files

Q2 It appears that if you add a new item to web project, this class will automatically be added to project list and we can reference it from all pages in this project.

So are all files added to project list automatically being referenced ?

thanx

EDIT:

On your second question, you are adding a public class to a namespace so will be visible to other classes in that project and in that namespace.

I don’t know much about assemblies, but I’d assume the reason why item( class ) added to the project is visible to other classes in that project is for the simple fact that in web project all classes get compiled into single assembly and for the fact that public classes contained in the same assembly are always visible to each other?

much appreciated

Answer 1

1. PDB is used to give you line numbers in stack trace. It's always optional
2. No. You need to specifically reference from each project.

Answer 2

A PDB file is a "programming database" and is used by the debugger. It is not necessary to compile or run your application. (By the way, you should not deploy your PDB files).

On your second question, you are adding a public class to a namespace so will be visible to other classes in that project and in that namespace. You can change class visibility (who can "see" the class) using access modifiers.