CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netreflection.net-4.0
Jon
Jon

Reputation: 40062

Assembly.GetCustomAttributes still considered best approach?

I want to point to a directory of DLL's and read the attributes of the classes in it. Most classes have a custom attribute with various properties that I want to read.

I have some old code which uses Assembly.GetCustomAttributes

Is this still considered the best approach?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 987

Answers (2)

MaLio
MaLio

Reputation: 2540

Reflection is the only way to read custom attributes. Some pseudo custom attributes are reflected on properties of the System.Type class. Assemblies loaded 'normally' cannot be unloaded from an appdomain, so ideally you want to load the assemblies into a reflection only context (there are methods System.Reflection.Assembly.ReflectionOnlyLoad and ReflectionOnlyLoadFrom) so that they may be unloaded when you have your desired information.

Upvotes: 1

Aliostad
Aliostad

Reputation: 81680

Assembly.GetCustomAttributes gets you attributes for the assembly - which is assemblie's metadata. This are usually place in the AssemblyInfo.cs while they can be placed anywhere.

It should not be confused with class custom attributes - or property/method/field/etc.

If you mean you want to filter out assemblies to look out for by having a custom attribute which identifies such assemblies of interest, then it is a valid approach. However, bear in mind, to read such attributes, assembly first needs to be loaded onto memory.

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions