CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#dllmonounity-containermonodevelop
Lea Hayes
Lea Hayes

Reputation: 64196

Hide class members from everything except another specific assembly

I have two class libraries "MyLibrary.dll" and "MyLibraryEditor.dll" for a Unity runtime and editor extension. There are several class members inside "MyLibrary.dll" that are only intended for use by "MyLibraryEditor.dll".

My first thought was to use the internal keyword because I mistakenly thought that this constrained visibility to a namespace. Instead it is clear that this keyword limits visibility to the assembly.

What is the best way to constrain access to some class members to "MyLibrary.dll" and "MyLibraryEditor.dll" without hurting performance? Also, reflection is not an option.

I am happy to simply not document the functions, but unfortunately Intellisense (and MonoDevelop's equivalent) show these members.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 657

Answers (3)

Jon Skeet
Jon Skeet

Reputation: 1500065

You could make the members internal but use [InternalsVisibleTo] to give access to those members to the other assembly. They'd still be visible within the same assembly as well, of course... there's no way of getting round that.

I primarily use InternalsVisibleToAttribute for giving access to internal members to test classes, and would try to avoid doing this for non-test purposes - but sometimes it can be useful.

Upvotes: 3

Steve Czetty
Steve Czetty

Reputation: 6228

If you want internals in one assembly to be visible from another assembly, you can use the InternalsVisibleTo attribute on the assembly containing the internals. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.runtime.compilerservices.internalsvisibletoattribute.aspx:

[assembly:InternalsVisibleTo("MyLibraryEditor")]

That answered, you might want to rethink your architectural design so that you don't need to use it, since it will open up all internals to the other assembly, not only the ones that you want.

Upvotes: 5

Jason Coyne
Jason Coyne

Reputation: 6636

This is not possible using pure C# concepts. You are two seperate assemblies, that is as far seperate as you can get, and there is no relationship between the two as far as .Net is concerned.

you could do some things with signing or validation to make it so it would be difficult to use one assembly without the other, but not something you can do to prevent visibility of the classes/members.

Upvotes: 0

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