I'm trying to build a plugin architecture where dlls are included in a zip file, unzipped, stored, then loaded so that a specific type can be constructed and worked with. In theory, it sounds doable. But I'm having an issue with it. I keep getting a
ReflectionTypeLoadException.
Here's what I have that isn't working:
var dlls = pluginFiles.Where(p => p.Value.FileInfo.Extension.ToLower() == ".dll").ToList();
int num = 0;
foreach(var dll in dlls){
var assembly = Assembly.LoadFile (dll.Value.FileInfo.FullName);
var pluginTypes = assembly.GetTypes().Where (p => p.IsSubclassOf (typeof (Plugin)));
foreach(var pluginType in pluginTypes){
var ctor = pluginType.GetConstructors ().FirstOrDefault ();
if (ctor == null) continue;
var plugin = (Plugin)ctor.Invoke (new object [] { });
if (plugin == null) continue;
num++;
_mgr.RegisterNew (plugin);
}
}
As I'm stepping through this in debug, the exception happens on the line where I'm running assembly.GetTypes().
What am I doing wrong here? Should I be doing something with a new AppDomain?
Further info: The assembly I'm loading is a test assembly. It does have a reference to FakeItEasy. It has a single class, which is the class I'm looking for. That particular class is a subclass of another class that is in an assembly referenced by my calling class... That looked confusing. Let me explain it this way:
Assembly 1: Core, Assembly 2: Dummy_assembly, Assembly 3: Tests.
- Both Tests and dummy_assembly reference Core.
- Dummy_assembly is a dll that I've zipped up and am attempting to unzip, load, and then search.
- Tests is the assembly from which I'm calling the method shown above.
- The code shown above resides in Core.
I've looked at this. It seems like it might be applicable, but I can't fully tell how (and I don't quite understand why that answer works for that question).
