Assemblies in the Common Language Runtime
Assemblies are the building blocks of .NET Framework applications; they form the fundamental unit of deployment, version control, reuse, activation scoping, and security permissions. An assembly is a collection of types and resources that are built to work together and form a logical unit of functionality. An assembly provides the common language runtime with the information it needs to be aware of type implementations. To the runtime, a type does not exist outside the context of an assembly.
In This Section
- Assemblies Overview
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Provides an overview of the functions performed by assemblies.
- Assembly Benefits
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Describes how assemblies help solve versioning problems and DLL conflicts.
- Assembly Contents
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Describes the elements that make up an assembly.
- Assembly Manifest
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Describes the data in the assembly manifest, and how it is stored in assemblies.
- Global Assembly Cache
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Describes the global assembly cache and how it is used with assemblies.
- Strong-Named Assemblies
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Describes the characteristics of strong-named assemblies.
- Assembly Security Considerations
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Discusses how security works with assemblies.
- Assembly Versioning
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Provides an overview of the .NET Framework versioning policy.
- Assembly Placement
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Discusses where to locate assemblies.
- Assemblies and Side-by-Side Execution
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Provides an overview of using multiple versions of the runtime or of an assembly simultaneously.
Reference
- Assembly
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The .NET Framework class that represents assemblies in the type system.
