Question

I build a CodeCompileUnit and the following code outputs a C# source code file, a .dll and I can get an instance from the assembly:

TextWriter tw = new IndentedTextWriter(new StreamWriter(filePath + ".cs", false), "    ");
provider.GenerateCodeFromCompileUnit(compileUnit, tw, new CodeGeneratorOptions());
tw.Close();

CompilerParameters cp = new CompilerParameters { GenerateInMemory = true, GenerateExecutable = false};
cp.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("MyProgram.exe");
cp.OutputAssembly = filePath + ".dll";
CompilerResults cr = provider.CompileAssemblyFromFile(cp, filePath + ".cs");

MyType instance = (MyType)Activator.CreateInstance(cr.CompiledAssembly.GetTypes()[0]);

So far so good. Now I would like to avoid generating those files:

CompilerParameters cp = new CompilerParameters { GenerateInMemory = true, GenerateExecutable = false};
cp.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("MyProgram.exe");
//cp.OutputAssembly = filePath + ".dll";
CompileResults cr = provider.CompileAssemblyFromDom(cp, compileUnit);

This throws a FileNotFoundException. It looks for a x32savit.dll (or similar) in my \temp folder but it is not there. If I uncomment the OutputAssembly it fails the same but on that path.

Answer 1

It turned out to be an error with namespaces. There is a good example here.

Adding the following code was very helpful while debugging.

  string errorText = String.Empty;
  foreach (CompilerError compilerError in compilerResults.Errors)
      errorText += compilerError + "\n";