Question

I have an application that uses (has referenced) a class library (myLib.dll private assembly).

I created a new class library project with exactly tha same code of the first class library.

When i put in a folder the application and the second dll it throws an exception when i run it.

How does the application distinguish the two assemblies since they are not strong named?

this is the application

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        try
        {
            mYnameSpace.Class1 c = new mYnameSpace.Class1();
            c.test1();
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
        catch(Exception ex)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(ex);
        }
    }
}

this is the code of each library

namespace mYnameSpace
{
  public class Class1
  {
    public void test1()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("hello");
    }
  }
}

It’s displayed the junt in time debuger. (“an unhandled exception occured”)

Answer 1

If the assembly is not in the GAC then the CLR will search the directories in the probing paths for an executable with the same display name. Which ever one it finds is then checked for the rest of the assembly attributes, AssemblyVersion, Culture and PublicKeyToken. A mismatch with the reference assembly produces an exception. I’d guess at an assembly version mismatch since culture is normally * and public key token is null.

Of course, the exception message will give you a better diagnostic than my answer.