I am facing a problem with ILMerge. I have 4 dll files required for my app but I merged them into 1 with ILMerge using the following syntax:
ilmerge /out:merged.dll lib1.dll lib2.dll lib3.dll lib4.dll
Then I added the file merged.dll as a reference in my solution and removed the other 4. But my application still fails to load when the other dll files are not in the directory of the application.
Did I miss any step? It doesn't make any sense to me why it wouldn't work..
Fail on my part. I was testing on an older build of my application, which explains why it didn't work. The above steps will work fine so I hope this may be useful to someone.
Related
At the moment of creating a project of type "Library of Classes, usually one can generate a dll when compiling, but how could I generate a dll without losing others that I already have included?
I explain with an example: It turns out that Nuget downloaded an S22.Imap dll with the one I worked with, later I generated the dll in the traditional way that I explained in the beginning, but when I wanted to work with dll in another computer, I got errors that were not I found functions that contained the S22.IMAP dll. So to solve this problem, I had to copy the dll of my project, S22.IMAP in an additional way in a specific path of the other computer.
My question is:
How could you generate a dll that includes the ones included in the project you were working with?
All the referred 3rd party dlls (S22.Imap.dll in your example) will be copied to the output folder together with your own dll file (let's say a.dll) when you build your project. That means you should always copy them together (S22 + a.dll) to the place you want to refer them, on another computer/folder/place.
If you really want to make them only one file (although it is not recommended), you can set the S22 one as some "nested resource". Then you will get only one a.dll file and the S22 one is inside the a.dll. See below page for some reference:
Embedding one dll inside another as an embedded resource and then calling it from my code
AND, ILMerge is some tool that can help you do so.
In general, you don't. A DLL is a dynamic linked library, and you would normally only combine static libraries during a build. Here is an answer on the difference between static and dynamic linking.
Typically you would include all the DLLs you need in the installer package. If you use Visual Studio to create the installer, it can detect the dependencies for you. When you run the installer, all of the necessary DLLs are deployed. Nearly all commercial .NET software follows this pattern.
It is possible to merge an assembly into another assembly using a tool called ILMerge. This would be a very unusual thing to do, and could cause issues with intellectual property and code signing, so it is not recommended.
I have a product 'prod.exe' which I would like to obfuscate. 'prod.exe' has two dependencies: 'common1.dll' and 'common2.dll'.
I can obfuscate 'prod.exe' fine using ConfuserEx.CLI.exe listing its dependencies in the '.crproj' settings file.
I would also like to obfuscate the dlls 'common1.dll' and 'common2.dll'. Of course if I was to obfuscate these dlls on their own then my product wouldn't be able to reference them, so I need to do it at the same time as I obfuscate the product.
I can't find any obvious way to do this using ConfuserEx, but a potential solution I've attempted is first merging the exe and its dependent dlls using ILMerge and then obfuscating the resulting merged exe with ConfuserEx. Merging works just fine, but when I try to run the merged exe through ConfuserEx I get an error:
Failed to resolve dependency of prod.exe
This error happens whether or not I provide ConfuserEx paths to the dependent dlls. Although the dependencies are within the binary of prod.exe ConfuserEx can't find them.
Any help solving this problem would be greatly appreciated, whether that's a method to obfuscate an exe and it's dependencies separately or do it on a merged binary like I've attempted.
Cheers
It appears the ConfuserEx merges dependencies into the target by default removing the need for use of ILMerge.
I have a dll containing classes to access data in SQL (a sort of ORM system) included in my .cs page with a using statement. For some reason the dll (with definition for a new field) isn't seen by the cs code, though I've uploaded the new dll in bin. It won't see my new field in the dll's helper classes (now compiled into the dll).
Is there a way to troubleshoot the dll, or the cs to tell why this won't see the class I updated and rebuilt? The class works fine locally and on another server, but on my prod server, it bombs.
This is using Sitefinity 3.7 with a Subsonic/Substage module if that sheds some light on it.
If you are using Visual Studio, verify 2 things, first:
try deleting csproj.user and .suo files (visual studio will recreate them)
The second thing is the version of the framework your project is running, and the version of the framework the dll was compiled in.
If your project is using .NET 4.0 but the DLL was built using 2.0 or similar you may not be able to use it, you can add it, but it wont be loaded.
This sounds so familiar... have you check to see if there is another dll on the path that gets resolved? Dynamic-Link Library Search Order
Make sure that your dll was not registered on the production service in the GAC.
How to extract an assembly from the GAC?
Perhaps you have a local copy of the DLL in your project and the DLL that gets updated is elsewhere.
I tend to think the dll you build is 32 bit (X86) dll. where as you are trying to consume it from project that targets "Any CPU".
Is your production server a 64 bit ?
If answer is yes, goto project properties => Build tab (of your cs code's project which is not understanding the dll) and set the Platform target as X86.
If the updated DLL has a different version number, you may need to update the Project Reference to it by deleting and re-adding a reference to the DLL in the bin folder.
If the project generating the DLL is present in the same solution, you may have an issue in creating a file reference (may not be updated) instead of a project reference (will be updated).
fuslog.exe is a great tool when troubleshooting assembly (dll) binding issues.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/e74a18c4.aspx
Another .net developer helped me figure this out. I had a rogue ToString() in there where there should have been a cast to string, allowing nulls. My dll was okay after all. Thanks everyone for your suggestions, I learned a lot.
Has anyone experienced this or found a solution? I have tried the following:
Referencing the output dll directly without moving it
Uninstalling the output dll from the GAC
Neither option made a difference. Please note that the generated XML doc has the same name as the dll and is included with it.
Ah ha. I found the reason why this was occurring.
If you referencing your ILMerge project within Visual Studio (i.e. as Add Reference -> Project) then Intellisense will not use the generated XML doc.
To solve: In your post-build step copy your output files to a common directory (e.g. Reference Assemblies) and then link against the DLLs. You can still have the project in the solution, however you must setup the project dependencies so that it will build if you have made changes.
HTH,
In my project, I want to reuse some code for multiple binaries (.exe).
So, I decided to build a .dll from some sources and to include it in my .exe application thanks to csc.exe.
OK that works.
But now, I want to add a new level : I would like to build some net modules and then build my .dll which includes all net modules built before.
Is that possible ? How ?
I think you are going to end up with a multiple file assembly if you use the C# compiler to do that.
But link.exe (which comes with Visual C++) should be able to produce a single file assembly from a bunch of .netmodule files.
This is possible. If you compile your projects all as .netmodules you can then link them into 1 single assembly. Instructions can be found here.
/*for one file */
csc /target:module misource1.cs
/*for multiple file */
csc /target:module misource1.cs misource2.cs misource3.cs
Target is Module so keep it before the source file names