Question

Let’s say a create an (executable) assembly in memory by
compiling a code string. Then I want to serialize this assembly
object into a byte array and then store it in a database. Then later
on I want to retrieve the byte array from the database and deserialize
the byte array back into an assembly object, then invoke the entry
point of the assembly.

At first I just tried to do this serialization like I would any other simple object in .net, however apparently that won’t work with an assembly object. The assembly object contains a method called GetObjectData which gets serialization data necessary to reinstantiate the assembly. So I’m somewhat confused as to how I piece all this together for my scenario.

The answer only needs to show how to take an assembly object, convert it into a byte array, convert that back into an assembly, then execute the entry method on the deserialized assembly.

Answer 1

An assembly is more conveniently represented simply as a binary dll file. If you think of it like that, the rest of the problems evaporate. In particlar, look at Assembly.Load(byte[]) for loading an Assembly from binary. To write it as binary, use CompileAssemblyFromSource and look at the result’s PathToAssembly – then File.ReadAllBytes(path) to obtain the binary from the file.