0

Not sure if this can be done, but here goes anyways.

I've written an N-tier application that's going to be implemeneted by end users. I wanted to expose 1 class only in a Project I called Myapp.client. Now, I want end users to ONLY have to include this DLL in their projects when working with the application. The problem I face though is that the Client Project (dll) obvioiusly has references to other projects in my solution. When testing by only including the client dll, I always get this type of compile error (which is normal and I understand it):

Error 1 The type 'XXXX.DataObjects.Someclass' is defined in an assembly that is not referenced. You must add a reference to assembly 'XXXX.DataObjects, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=8eefc54a8e08e7cc'.

Is there any way to automatically include these references when someone includes the client dll? Or would I have to rewrite the app to include everything in the client dll?

Thanks.

Stuart M
  • 11,458
  • 6
  • 45
  • 59
Fox
  • 891
  • 3
  • 9
  • 30

2 Answers2

1

This sounds like a plugin architecture to me. The dll, what the plugin implementor should implement should ideally contain a clean interface. Of course that interface may contain some types what belongs to your code too. You have to refactor our architecture in a way that those types would be interfaces too, and ideally would be in one or few assemblies. Then you only have to provide the plugin-in interface assembly and the other slim interface assembly(s) to the client.

BTW, have you looked into MEF? Some years ago it was a CodePlex project but for a while now it's part of the .NET base now. It provides convenient way to decouple such architecture. link You just have to use [Export(...)] and [Import(...)] attributes and configure it's discovery. MEF also can serve as an IoC/Dependency Injection framework.

Csaba Toth
  • 10,021
  • 5
  • 75
  • 121
  • Thank you @Csaba. Your answer is pointing me in the right direction. With regards to MEF, i'm reading something that I think can solve my problem: "A slightly more sophisticated approach would be to provide an extension point or interface, to permit decoupling between the application and its components. Under this model, you might provide an interface that a component can implement, and an API to enable it to interact with your application. This solves the problem of requiring source code access, but it still has its own difficulties.". Do you know of a example of doing something like this? – Fox Apr 23 '13 at 09:00
0

If you have control over how client applications are built - and you can deploy missing assemblies to your clients - you can auto-resolve references during build.

In other cases, you would have to either rewrite your main assembly to include all referenced code, or combine several assemblies into one using ILMerge.

Alexander
  • 4,153
  • 1
  • 24
  • 37