Finding type hierarchy assemblies using Mono.Cecil

Question

I am trying to implement a method that receives a type and returns all the assemblies that contain its base types.

For example:
Class A is a base type (class A belongs to assembly c:\A.dll)
Class B inherits from A (class B belongs to assembly c:\B.dll)
Class C inherits from B (class C belongs to assembly c:\c.dll)

public IEnumerable<string> GetAssembliesFromInheritance(string assembly, 
                                                        string type)
{
    // If the method recieves type C from assembly c:\C.dll
    // it should return { "c:\A.dll", "c:\B.dll", "c:\C.dll" }
}

My main problem is that AssemblyDefinition from Mono.Cecil does not contain any property like Location.

How can an assembly location be found given an AssemblyDefinition?

Jb Evain · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-22T21:52:56.227

An assembly can be composed of multiple modules, so it doesn't really have a location per se. The assembly's main module does have a location though:

AssemblyDefinition assembly = ...;
ModuleDefinition module = assembly.MainModule;
string fileName = module.FullyQualifiedName;

So you could write something along the line of:

public IEnumerable<string> GetAssembliesFromInheritance (TypeDefinition type)
{
    while (type != null) {
        yield return type.Module.FullyQualifiedName;

        if (type.BaseType == null)
            yield break;

        type = type.BaseType.Resolve ();
    }
}

Or any other variant which pleases you more.

And from the author of Cecil, no less! – Igal Tabachnik Jan 22 '11 at 18:20 — Igal Tabachnik, Jan 22 '11 at 18:20

Finding type hierarchy assemblies using Mono.Cecil

1 Answers1