Finding a class in an assembly?

[Satch]

My program compiles script files written in VB.NET at run-time into an assembly in memory using the built-in compiler stuff. Now, let's say my script has this in it:

Namespace Testing
    Public Class Abc
        Public Sub TryMe()
            System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Hello World")
        End Sub
    End Class
End Namespace

Well, my program will take this script and compile it at run-time into an assembly in memory.

Is there a way to get a list of the namespaces/classes/etc. contained within the assembly, or search through it for a class with a certain name and return its information?

I'm pretty new to assembly stuff and compiling dynamic code at run-time, so I'm not really sure how to do much yet. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Satch

[Athley]

Maybe you can do something like this.....

Dim asm As System.Reflection.Assembly
asm = System.Reflection.Assembly.LoadFrom("c:\asm.dll")
Dim ty As Type
For Each ty In asm.GetTypes
    MsgBox(ty.FullName)
Next

I'm not sure how to get a proper reference to the class in your case, if LoadFrom does not work, try Load or any of the other commands.

[PT Exorcist]

of course u can..do a search by the forum and u'll c that i made the same question a while ago..

and by what u say i see that u used the system.reflection.emit ... i am very interested in that but where can i find info about how to use it? tks

[Satch]

Thanks for the responses

PT, I found the post and can't wait to get home to try it out. As for the System.Reflection.Emit stuff, I'm not sure if its the same as what I'm doing. I use the Microsoft.VisualBasic.VBCodeProvider and the compiler in System.CodeDOM (can't remember the full name at the moment.) Either way, it'll compile VB.NET code. I'll post a link to it when I get home where I have access to my project's code.

[Satch]

This compiles the compile.vb file in the application's directory and outputs it into assembly.dll and loads it into the memory.

Dim myVBCodeProvider As Microsoft.VisualBasic.VBCodeProvider
Dim myCodeCompiler As CodeDom.Compiler.ICodeCompiler
Dim myCompilerParameters As CodeDom.Compiler.CompilerParameters
Dim myCompilerResults As CodeDom.Compiler.CompilerResults
Dim i As Long
 
myCompilerParameters = New CodeDom.Compiler.CompilerParameters()
myCompilerParameters.GenerateInMemory = False
myCompilerParameters.GenerateExecutable = False
myCompilerParameters.OutputAssembly = Application.StartupPath + "\assembly.dll"
 
myVBCodeProvider = New Microsoft.VisualBasic.VBCodeProvider()
 
Dim asm As [Assembly]
 
For Each asm In AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies
      myCompilerParameters.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(asm.Location)
Next
 
myCodeCompiler = myVBCodeProvider.CreateCompiler()
myCompilerResults = myCodeCompiler.CompileAssemblyFromFile(myCompilerParameters, Application.StartupPath + "\compile.vb")
 
If myCompilerResults.Errors.HasErrors Then
      For i = 1 To myCompilerResults.Errors.Count
            frmMain.DefInstance.lstStatus.Items.Add("Error: " + myCompilerResults.Errors.Item(i - 1).ToString())
            Application.DoEvents()
      Next
      Exit Sub
End If
 
Compiler_Assembly = myCompilerResults.CompiledAssembly

[PT Exorcist]

ahh tks...but im in C#...and looks like no one has examples about using system.reflection.emit