As the title says, I want to consume all of PDFSharp's source code into my own project. But let me explain why I came to this scenario, so if there is something else I can do, maybe there are other options.
Goal: Compile my project into a single .exe file to use. No installers.
Problem: It uses PDFSharp.dll which is causing me issues.
What I am trying to do, is use ILMerge to create the .exe. I've used this successfully in the past for other projects.
The issue I think is that ILMerge is requiring references to other assemblies that PDFSharp uses. The first being Microsoft.ApplicationInsights. So to by-pass this, I installed Microsoft.ApplicationInsights into my project via Nuget. Then removed the actual reference from the project, but referenced the library in my ILMerge command as below:
/lib:"C:\<path to assembly>\Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.2.16.0\lib\net46"
This actually worked. Except, now it asked for another library and I get this error:
Unresolved assembly reference not allowed: GdPicture.NET.11.
This looks like a paid library, perhaps downloading the trial may get me past this. I didn't try yet. I switched gears as I felt I may be trying to reference an endless amount of assemblies.
I then tried to get the PDFSharp source code and I found that version 1.32 here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfsharp/files/pdfsharp/PDFsharp%201.32/
I added a reference to this project within my solution file, so now I have a solution with 2 projects. Great.
I then I tried to link source files into my project. How to do that is here:
https://jeremybytes.blogspot.com/2019/07/linking-files-in-visual-studio.html#:~:text=To%20link%20files%2C%20use%20the,CLICK%20THE%20%22Add%22%20BUTTON.
This seems to work, but every file I add requires another file, which references another file etc. It seemed endless. So that led me to the idea of just consuming the entire source code into my project and I haven't seen a good way to do that yet. I can't add a reference to the project as it just references the compiled dll which again, iLMerge can't combine.
I've also tried updating the tag within the .csproj file of PDFSharp to "module" to create a .netmodule file. This creates the file in the obj directory but throws an error:
\PDFsharp\code\PdfSharp\obj\Release\PdfSharp.netmodule' is not an assembly
Any help is appreciated. thanks.
UPDATE: I reversed everything and added the PdfSharp reference - back to where I was and changed my project to module and built which created a .netmodule file. Then used the assembly linker to create a .exe from that file. That worked using this command from VS Dev prompt.
al MyModule.netmodule /target:exe /out:MyProgram.exe /main:MyNamespace.MyClass.Main
This created the .exe, but when run without any other supporting files produces a file not found error:
System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'MyModule.netmodule' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
Which is interesting since the module should be inside the exe right?
I have this working now, so I just wanted to place my results here since it is already posted.
My initial problem was that I mistakenly thought the PDFSharp.dll was causing the issue, but it was actually another group of 3rd Party dlls I was referencing.
I tried for hours to get iLMerge to work with the only success being it would kick out a single .exe file but it would have runtime errors.
Errors that I encountered:
Error: Unresolved assembly reference not allowed: Custom.Assembly.
Solution: Reference the assembly if possible. If you have many, you can reference a folder with the /lib:"C:\folderpath" switch.
Error: Unresolved assembly reference not allowed: ADotNetFramework.dll.
Solution: You can reference the desired .Net Framework path where iLMerge will search for missing references. Example: /targetplatform:"v4,C:<Path To Framework>.NETFramework\v4.8"
Error: The assembly 'xyz.dll' was not merged in correctly. It is still listed as an external reference in the target assembly.
Solution: You can get past this error with the /closed switch. However, I don't think I should even have gotten this error because 'xyz.dll' was a referenced dll to be combined.
Also - use the /log switch, it is extremely helpful in seeing exactly what iLMerge is doing and figuring out your issue. Example: /log:mylog.txt
This allowed me to see that iLMerge was finding duplicate namespaces, in the 3rd Party assemblies and automatically renaming them. Here is an example from my log:
Merging assembly 'My.Assembly.Name' into target assembly.
Duplicate type name: modifying name of the type '<>f__AnonymousType02' (from assembly 'My.Assembly.Name') to 'My.Assembly.Name.<>f__AnonymousType02'
Duplicate type name: modifying name of the type '<>f__AnonymousType12' (from assembly 'My.Assembly.Name') to 'My.Assembly.Name.<>f__AnonymousType12'
Duplicate type name: modifying name of the type '' (from assembly 'My.Assembly.Name') to 'My.Assembly.Name.
Finally - the solution that I found was not to use iLMerge. I found this Answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/40786196/2596309
which used Costura.Fody
I installed the nuget package with:
Install-Package Costura.Fody -Version 4.1.0
Cleaned and built my solution and it created a single .exe file that I tested and it worked. Literally, I put 3 days of work into this and the solution took 3 minutes...
I have more than one .Net projects to work and i want to reference these all projects into one integrated project and add them as a reference in this project and want to run any method or function from this integrated project.So i have added all these projects in the same solution in the directory and added them to the solution and added as a reference.
Now My question
I havent converted those projects to class library as i want the main method to be there to kickoff that function from my integrated project ,if i make it class library will i still be able to access that main method???
I did add those projects reference and made them to class library and also as exe,but in both the cases , when i did import them ,but when i try to call those functions,it doesnt create an instance and doesnt show any options in intelligence,on top of that,once i try to build it back again,it throws an error "The type or namespace name could not be found(are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)"
Can someone please answer them !!!!
Internally there is little difference between a .NET exe and a .NET DLL. For most purposes a .NET .exe is just a .NET dll with some data saying "this class has the main function". It is one of those things they copied really well from Java and improoved upon.
There might be secondary differences (I am not sure the .exe provides full COM/.NET interop support, for example). But for most purposes, you can use a Compiled .NET exe like a compiled .NET dll. Including putting it into the references of a 3rd project.
The main issue here is that only the compiled code in the propert directory is considered. Especially if you still plan on working on those backend References, you need to be aware if you referenced the Debug or Release version of the .dll/.exe
I using(and have used in the past) the technique from HERE to allow me to produce a single stand alone exe for my application. By including referenced assemblies into the executable.
My newest application makes use of Entity Framework 6, it looks as though the dll is getting included into my executable but if I do not include it in the same folder as the executable my application crashes with an error.
System.InvalidCastException: Unable to cast object of type 'System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.SqlCeConnectionFactory' to type 'System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.IDbConnectionFactory'
I suspect this could be resolved if I moved my configuration out of App.config but am new to entity framework and am unable to decipher how to achieve this. If this is the solution how do I go about implementing it.
Update:
I did manage to move my DB setup into a DbConfiguration object but this has not solved the problem.
For my project I have used Costura.Fody, but I am not sure if it fits for your purposes
Embedding DLLs in a compiled executable
I know the error message is common and there are plenty of questions on SO about this error, but no solutions have helped me so far, so I decided to ask the question. Difference to most of similar questions is me using App_Code directory.
Error message:
CS0012: The type 'Project.Rights.OperationsProvider' is defined in an
assembly that is not referenced. You must add a reference to assembly
'Project.Rights, version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'.
Source File:
c:\inetpub\wwwroot\Test\Website\App_Code\Company\Project\BusinessLogic\Manager.cs
Following suggestions here and here, I have deleted all instances of Project.Rights.dll inside C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET/*.*
According to this, I checked if .cs files in question have build action set to "Compile". They do.
I have also double checked that the .cs file containing the "Project.Rights.OperationsProvider" type is deployed to App_Code directory.
For some reason, application is not looking for the type in the App_Code directory. Since I've deleted all instances of Project.Rights.dll (that I know of), I don't know which assembly the error message is mentioning.
When you get this error it isn't always obvious what is going on, but as the error says - you are missing a reference. Take the following line of code as an example:
MyObjectType a = new MyObjectType("parameter");
It looks simple enough and you probably have referenced "MyObjectType" correctly. But lets say one of the overloads for the "MyObjectType" constructor takes a type that you don't have referenced. For example there is an overload defined as:
public MyObjectType(TypeFromOtherAssembly parameter) {
// ... normal constructor code ...
}
That is at least one case where you will get this error. So, look for this type of pattern where you have referenced the type but not all the types of the properties or method parameters that are possible for functions being called on that type.
Hopefully this at least gets you going in the right direction!
Check target framework in the projects.
In my case "You must add a reference to assembly" actually meant, that caller and reference projects didn't have the same target framework. The caller project had .Net 4.5 , but referenced library had target 4.6.1.
I am sure, that MS compiler can be smarter and log more meaningful error message. I've added a suggestion to https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn/issues/14756
In my case this was because doing a NuGet package update had only updated references to a dll dependency in some but not all projects in my solution - resulting in conflicting versions. Using a grep-style tool to search text within *.csproj files in my solution it was then easy to see the projects that still needed to be updated.
When you get this error, it means that code you are using makes a reference to a type that is in an assembly, but the assembly is not part of your project so it can't use it.
Deleting Project.Rights.dll is the opposite of what you want. You need to make sure your project can reference the assembly. So it must either be placed in the Global Assembly Cache or your web application's ~/Bin directory.
Edit-If you don't want to use the assembly, then deleting it is not the proper solution either. Instead, you must remove all references to it in your code. Since the assembly isn't directly needed by code you've written, but instead by something else you're referencing, you'll have to replace that referenced assembly with something that doesn't have Project.Rights.dll as a dependency.
In my case, I was referencing a library that was being built to the wrong Platform/Configuration (I had just created the referenced library).
Furthermore, I was unable to fix the problem in Visual Studio Configuration Manager -- unable to switch and create new Platforms and Configurations for this library. I fixed it by correcting the entries in the ProjectConfigurationPlatforms section of the .sln file for that project. All its permutations were set to Debug|Any CPU (I'm not sure how I did that). I overwrote the entries for the broken project with the ones for a working project and changed the GUID for each entry.
Entries for functioning project
{9E93345C-7A51-4E9A-ACB0-DAAB8F1A1267}.Release|x64.ActiveCfg = Release|x64
{9E93345C-7A51-4E9A-ACB0-DAAB8F1A1267}.Release|x64.Build.0 = Release|x64
Entries for corrupted project
{94562215-903C-47F3-BF64-8B90EF43FD27}.Release|x64.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU
{94562215-903C-47F3-BF64-8B90EF43FD27}.Release|x64.Build.0 = Debug|Any CPU
Corrupted entries now fixed
{94562215-903C-47F3-BF64-8B90EF43FD27}.Release|x64.ActiveCfg = Release|x64
{94562215-903C-47F3-BF64-8B90EF43FD27}.Release|x64.Build.0 = Release|x64
I hope this helps someone.
It just happened to me that different projects were referencing different copies of the same dll.
I made sure all referenced the same file on disk, and the error disappeared as I expected.
Unloading and reloading the class library in Visual Studio solved this for me.
For me, this was caused by the project both directly and indirectly (through another dependency) referencing two different builds of Bouncy Castle that had different assembly names. One of the Bouncy Castle builds was the NuGet package, the other one was a debug build of the source downloaded from GitHub. Both were nominally version 1.8.1, but the project settings of the GitHub code set the assembly name to BouncyCastle whereas the NuGet package had the assembly name BouncyCastle.Crypto. Changing the project settings, thus aligning the assembly names, fixed the problem.
It didn't work for me when I've tried to add the reference from the .NET Assemblies tab.
It worked, though, when I've added the reference with BROWSE to C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319
I had this issue on a newly created solution that used existing projects. For some reason, one project could not "see" one other project, even though it had the same reference as every other project, and the referenced project was also building. I suspect that it was failing to detect something having to do with multiple target frameworks, because it was building in one framework but not the other.
Cleaning and rebuilding didn't work, and restarting VS didn't work.
What ended up working was opening a "Developer Command Prompt for VS 2019" and then issuing a msbuild MySolution.sln command. This completed successfully, and afterwards VS started building successfully also.
one of main reason can be the property of DLL
you must before do any thing to check the specific version property if it true make it false
Reason:
maybe the source code joined with other (old)version when you build it , but this Library upgraded with new update the version now different in the Assembly Cash and your application forbidden to get new DLL ,and after disable specific version property your applacaten will be free to get the new version of DLL references
Maybe a library (DLL file) you are using requires another library. In my case, I referenced a library that contained a database entity model - but I forgot to reference the entity framework library.
This can also mean you use a library, which exposes (public) types that are defined in a library. Even when you do not use these specifically in your library (the one that doesn't build).
What this probably prevents is you writing code that uses a class (which in its signature has the types from a library not referenced) that you cannot use.
For me the reason why the error appeared was that the WebForm where the error was reported has been moved from another folder, but the name of its codefile class remained unchanged and didn't correspond to the actual path.
Initial state:
Original file path: /Folder1/Subfolder1/MyWebForm.aspx.cs
Original codefile class name: Folder1_Subfolder1_MyWebForm
After the file was moved:
File path: /Folder1/MyWebForm.aspx.cs
Codefile class name (unchanged, with the error shown): Folder1_Subfolder1_MyWebForm
The solution:
Rename your codefile class Folder1_Subfolder1_MyWebForm
to one corresponding with the new path: Folder1_MyWebForm
All at once - problem solved, no errors reporting..
The type 'Domain.tblUser' is defined in an assembly that is not
referenced. You must add a reference to assembly 'Domain,
Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'.
**Solved:**
Add reference of my domain library layer to my web app libary layer
Note: Make sure your references are correct according to you DI container
In my case this was because I used
Implicit Operator
between BLL and DAL classes.when I want to use BLL Layer In Application Layer I got this error.
I changed
implicit operator
to
explicit operator
it be OK.
Thanks
In my case the version of the dll referenced was actually newer than the one that I had before.
I just needed to roll back to the previous release and that fixed it.
I have a similar problem, and I remove the RuntimeFrameworkVersion, and the problem was fixed.
Try to remove 1.1.1 or
My problem was that the Output Type for one of my projects was set to Console Application. To fix this, I right-clicked the project, chose Properties, clicked the Application tab, and change Output Type (from Console Application) to Class Library. After I re-compiled, this error went away.
Clean your solution and rebuild worked for me (in Visual Studio, these are options you get when you right click in your solution explorer), the error is gone in my project.
I am working on a c# codedom project which provides users to dynamically compile the c# code.
I am getting error when adding assembly dll of wpf (it is working fine for winforms). It is saying that "Can not find #### in assembly. Are you missing some reference" when I try to add the reference like "System.Windows.Media". But when I am adding the reference by its dll path like "C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.0\System.Printing.dll" then it is saying that "File C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.0\System.Printing.dll not found" but when I place the System.Printing.dll to the application executable folder, it is working fine.
Following is the code I am using to add the reference to compiler option:
CompilerParameters oParameters;
:
:
:
string lcAssemblyDll="C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.0\System.Printing.dll";
oParameters.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(lcAssemblyDll);
I am not able to understand the problem. Also is there any other approach to add the wpf assemblies?
Thanks
Well, I can't provide a thorough answer off the top of my head, but first of all you need to realize that a compilation reference is not the same as being able to resolve an assembly during application execution. So if that error was given during application execution I can imagine it throwing typeloader exceptions.
Second you are probably getting "Can not find #### in assembly. Are you missing some reference", because base types of classes you are dependent upon reside in assemblies to which the System.Windows.Media is referring.
You could try to solve this adding references to assemblies that get loaded during Assembly.ReflectionOnlyLoad of the assemblies you want referred.
If you add an event handler for AppDomain.CurrentDomain.ReflectionOnlyAssemblyResolve, you can add code that makes sure those assemblies may be loaded and then simply add references to the CodeCompileUnit.
I have run into one problem with this though and that was that some references get optimized away during compilation, so I implemented a nasty hack that simply adds a container class to the CodeCompileUnit which initializies the first constructable type found in each of those assemblies.
Hope that helps a bit.