CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#
Cyan
Cyan

Reputation: 1118

Delay loading in c#?

Is there such a thing as delay loading a dll in C#? I know this is possible to do in C++, but what about managed code?

Upvotes: 9

Views: 6194

Answers (3)

StayOnTarget
StayOnTarget

Reputation: 13007

This article explains in detail how it works in .NET. Summary of key points:

There are a number of different ways that assemblies are loaded in .NET. When you create a typical project, assemblies usually come from:

  • The Assembly reference list of the top level 'executable' project

  • The Assembly references of referenced projects

  • Dynamically loaded assemblies, using runtime loading via AppDomain or Reflection loading

and

.NET automatically loads mscorlib (most of the System namespace) as part of the .NET runtime hosting process that hoists up the .NET runtime in EXE apps, or some other kind of runtime hosting environment (runtime hosting in servers like IIS, SQL Server or COM Interop).

and

  • Dependent Assembly References are not pre-loaded when an application starts (by default)

  • Dependent Assemblies that are not referenced by executing code are never loaded

  • Dependent Assemblies are just in time loaded when first referenced in code

  • Once Assemblies are loaded they can never be unloaded, unless the AppDomain that hosts them is unloaded.

Upvotes: 2

TheCodeMonk
TheCodeMonk

Reputation: 2099

Yes it is. You don't include the DLL as a reference in your project and where you want to load/use it, you call the Assembly.LoadFile method.

This blog post does a pretty good job with code to describe how to do it.

Upvotes: 1

leppie
leppie

Reputation: 117260

.NET does that automatically, everything is loaded on demand by default.

Upvotes: 14

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