Oops!! How to unload the Assembly *Hell* !!! Nothing works !!

[mdrafik]

Dear all,

I opened an Assembly using Assembly.LoadFrom() method, did some work and set null. After that when i tried to delete that assembly file, its locked and couldn't remove it.

I tried using AppDomain also, to load that assembly in seperate appdomain and unloaded it using AppDomain.UnLoad also. It doesn't work. Nothing works. I can delete only when my app exits. I absolutely need of this assembly unload in my app.

Experts !!!, how to unload the Assembly *hell*.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Rafik.

[gijsj]

You can't unload a specific assembly, only an AppDomain.
You should use the static Unload method of the AppDomain class.

AppDomain.Unload(YourAppDomain)


Note 1
You can't unload the default AppDomain.

Note 2
If you use LoaderOptimization MultiDomain your assemblies get loaded in a domain neutral fashion, then the assembly gets locked until the whole process exits.

[gijsj]

Another note, setting a variable to null/nothing worked in the old world but in .NET anymore.

When a Garbage Collection takes place the GC will detect that the specific variable isn't used anymore and will be Garbage Collected, so setting something to null/nothing has no effect anymore.

[mdrafik]

Hi,

Ya, i tried unloading my own appdomain only not assembly.

I created seperate appdomain, loaded my assembly in it, done work, unloaded that appdomain using AppDomain.Unload(myAppDomain) method.

I doesn't work. Thanx for u'r info about setting to null.

But, AppDomainSetup 's ShadowCompyFiles property set to "true" will solve our problem, but yet to check.


Rafik

[gijsj]

Take a look at the below code how to do it:

public static void Main(string[] args)
{
AppDomain appDomain = AppDomain.CreateDomain("NewAppDomain");
appDomain.DoCallBack(new CrossAppDomainDelegate(LoadAssembly));

Console.WriteLine("Try to delete Assembly now"); // Delete/Overwrite will fail now
Console.ReadLine();

AppDomain.Unload(appDomain);
Console.WriteLine("AppDomain unloaded");

Console.WriteLine("Try to delete Assembly now"); // Delete/Overwrite wouldn't fail now
Console.ReadLine();
}

public static void LoadAssembly()
{
Assembly assembly = Assembly.LoadFrom(@"c:\MyClassLibrary.dll");
Console.WriteLine("Assembly loaded in {0}",AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName);
}

BTW:
ShadowCoping makes a copy of the original Assemblies specified in AppDomain.ShadowCopyDirectories and loads the copy, so the copy gets locked not the original ones.