What is Microsoft.Contracts and where is it coming from?

Question

I have a custom SharePoint job that is erroring out when it tries to run. When I look at the error i see:

Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Contracts, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=736440c9b414ea16' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

I've searched my solution and there is no reference to this anywhere. Where could this be coming from?

possible duplicate of [Microsoft.Contracts namespace](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1679392/microsoft-contracts-namespace) — Justin Ethier, Nov 22 '10 at 19:14
@Justin, my question also asks about how it could be part of an error when it's not part of my solution. Your possible duplicate does not. — Abe Miessler, Nov 22 '10 at 19:18

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 22 '10 at 19:14

4

Microsoft.Contracts (CodeContracts) is the assembly in which are contained the methods that "provides a language-agnostic way to express coding assumptions in .NET programs".

Maybe some external assembly is searching this one.

answered Nov 22 '10 at 19:14

as-cii

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How would I track down which external assembly has the reference? – Abe Miessler Nov 22 '10 at 19:26
I think Redgate .NET Reflector could help you :) – as-cii Nov 22 '10 at 19:32
I'm already using that. I've gone through all the .NET assemblies and there is nothing. – Abe Miessler Nov 22 '10 at 19:36
Maybe with some other software you have installed CodeContracts and now there is a broken reference. If you create a new project and run it, does it work ? – as-cii Nov 22 '10 at 20:19
I ended up using NDepend to find who was using it. – Abe Miessler Nov 22 '10 at 21:13
If you think the answer could help other people, please post it :) – as-cii Nov 22 '10 at 21:13

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 09 '12 at 09:45

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If you are using .NET 3.5 or earlier, you need to add a reference to Microsoft.Contracts.dll that is installed under:
%PROGRAMFILES%/Microsoft/Contracts/PublicAssemblies

edited Feb 09 '12 at 09:45

Brock Adams

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answered Aug 27 '11 at 11:30

iulia lucaciu

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score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 22 '10 at 19:15

Microsoft.Contracts is the main assembly of the Microsoft Code Contracts system. If its not used by your actual code, it could well be used by a referenced library.

In theory you should be able to remove all code related to it and your program should run the same. It is after all just a way of enforcing practices and helping with testing. In practice, I'm not so sure...

Code Contracts provide a language-agnostic way to express coding assumptions in .NET programs. The contracts take the form of pre-conditions, post-conditions, and object invariants. Contracts act as checked documentation of your external and internal APIs. The contracts are used to improve testing via runtime checking, enable static contract verification, and documentation generation. Code Contracts bring the advantages of design-by-contract programming to all .NET programming languages. We currently provide three tools:

The full version is only available in VS 2010 Premium/Ultimate, but apparently you can get a "standard edition" for other versions of VS.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 24 '11 at 16:27

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You can find the library here C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework.NETFramework\v4.0\mscorlib.dll

answered Jan 24 '11 at 16:27

Korayem

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What is Microsoft.Contracts and where is it coming from?

4 Answers4