Home/ Questions/Q 381715
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-12T15:06:44+00:00

Env.: .NET / VS2008 Hi All, My app uses a 3rd party DLL assembly

  • 0

Env.: .NET / VS2008

Hi All,

My app uses a 3rd party DLL assembly separately installed on some systems (clearly identified) but not all of them.

Which means that on some systems, the DLL is not there hence must not be called. To solve this, I have 2 versions of the app (using 2 configurations) for the 2 use cases. In one of them, all calls to the DLL are #if’ed out.

Since there are no calls to the DLL compiled at all in the app(they’re #if’ed out), is it safe to assume that the app won’t try to load the DLL even though it is referenced?

Or should I also exclude the reference?

Note: Asked in reaction to womp’s comment in this question.

TIA,

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    IIRC, the C# compiler will omit references to dll’s that are never actually used in the code. So if all code is inside #ifs, the reference to the dll will not be there in your compiled app, and the dll will never be loaded.

    You can check this using Reflector, by the way. Just drag & drop your compiled app into Reflector, and look at the References node. ILDASM also provides this feature, I think.

    Caveat: DllImports and dynamic type loading (e.g., Type.GetType("type,dll")) will dynamically load dlls without the C# compiler knowing or caring. But again, if inside the proper #ifs, nothing will be loaded.

    • 0