Manifests
As part of its metadata, every assembly has a manifest , which describes what is in the assembly, including identification information (name, version, etc.), a list of the types and resources in the assembly, a map to connect public types with the implementing code, and a list of assemblies referenced by this assembly.
Even the simplest program has a manifest. You can examine that
manifest using ILDasm
, which is provided as part
of your development environment. When you open it in
ILDasm
, the EXE program created by Example 12-3y looks like Figure 17-1.
Figure 17-1. ILDasm of Example 12-3
Notice the manifest (second line from the top). Double-clicking the manifest opens a Manifest window, as shown in Figure 17-2.
Figure 17-2. The Manifest window
This file serves as a map of the contents of the assembly. You can
see in the first line the reference to
the
mscorlib
assembly, which is referenced by this and
every .NET application The mscorlib
assembly is
the core library assembly for .NET and is available on every .NET
platform.
The next assembly line is a reference to the assembly from Example 12-3. You can also see that this assembly consists of a single module. You can ignore the rest of the metadata for now.
Modules in the Manifest
Assemblies can consist of more than one module. ...
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