Unable to compile code output because of some reference assembly goofups

Question

My issue goes like this:

There is a project called myframework. It has some extension methods defined in it as follows:

namespace myframework
{
    public static class Helpers
    {
        public static bool ContainsAll(this string obj, string[])
        {
            return true;
        }
    }
}

It also has some other stuff like interfaces, etc, etc.

There is a second class I generate via System.CodeDom classes. The generated output is somewhat like this:

using myframework;


public class A: IMyFrameworkInterface

{
    public void foo()
    {
        string s ="HELLO";

        if(s.ContainsAll(some_arr))
            return;
    }
        //More methods defined...

}

The compiler options I pass which is created prior to the actual compile call references the correct assemblies

var cp = new CompilerParameters();
cp.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("System.dll");
cp.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("myframework.dll");

The code compilation modules are written in a different project. The particular class responsible for this also nicely gives us access to a list of CompilerError object via which we can learn the result of compilation.

Issue1: When I tried this in an asp.net project the compiler threw error saying it could not find metadata file myframework.dll (despite it being referenced in the project).

Issue2: When I tried it with a windows forms project. It gave a different error. This time saying that string does not contain definition for ContainsAll()

How to solve these two specific problems?

About your first issue: a) try placing your dll in the "bin" folder. b) try temporarily giving your dll "Everyone" permission to rule out permission problems. — pkExec, May 24 '13 at 14:15
It sounds like an order of compilation issue. Is myframework.dll compiled separately or by the same compile? — Denise Skidmore, May 24 '13 at 17:03
If you compile both projects manually do you get the same errors? — Denise Skidmore, May 25 '13 at 13:19
@DeniseSkidmore No I don't get the errors; I've just tried creating the class manually in a separate project. Added myframework.dll as a reference to it and compiled it from visual studio. It didn't give any errors that time. — deostroll, May 26 '13 at 17:20
You mean you changed the reference type, or is that the first you added a reference to the dll? — Denise Skidmore, May 26 '13 at 20:49
@DeniseSkidmore I first added it to project, I.e. I did the latter. — deostroll, May 27 '13 at 02:27
If you are compiling them separately, the one should need a reference to the location where the already compiled dll is. — Denise Skidmore, May 28 '13 at 16:20
@DeniseSkidmore are u saying I need to enter full path to dll as argument to `Add()`? — deostroll, May 28 '13 at 18:14
I don't know if you need a full path, but the relative path isn't right if the compiler is not finding it. Some folks had suggested making sure the dll was in the bin folder if you don't specify more path. — Denise Skidmore, May 28 '13 at 18:54
@DeniseSkidmore I am using .net framework 3.5? Could this be an issue with the framework...? For all I know extension methods were not supported in frameowork v2.0 — deostroll, May 31 '13 at 02:19
Could be it: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/783155/using-extension-methods-with-net-framework-2-0 — Denise Skidmore, May 31 '13 at 11:48

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:05

Found out the answer to this after a bit digging up. I was using .net framework 3.5. The codedom compiler apis targets v2.0 of the framework by default. Hence, you have to manually specify the correct framework:

var cp = new CompilerParameters(
    new Dictionary<string,string>() { {"CompilerVersion", "v3.5"} });

For the compilation to work within an asp.net environment you'd have to actually point the references to the correct location. Hence you'd have to do something like follows:

cp.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(
    HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(
        "bin\\myframework.dll"));

My references:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/lukeh/archive/2007/07/11/c-3-0-and-codedom.aspx
.Net 3.5 CodeDom Compiler generating odd errors
And comments in the question's post. :)

Unable to compile code output because of some reference assembly goofups

1 Answers1