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Asked: 2026-05-10T18:19:55+00:00

Visual Studio does it; Reflector does it; and now I want to as well

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Visual Studio does it; Reflector does it; and now I want to as well 🙂

I want to retrieve the XML documentation for some members in some framework assemblies (i.e. mscorlib.dll, System.dll, etc). I assume this would involve:

  • finding the XML file for the assembly,
  • navigating to the appropriately named child element, and
  • retrieving the desired items (<summary>, <remarks>, etc)

Where are the XML files kept for framework assemblies? Any points on deciphering the XMLDOC naming scheme? Are there any libraries out there that will make this process easier?

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1 Answer

  1. Find xml

    For assembly.dll it is named as assembly.xml, but installed by Framework SDK, Runtime itself doesn’t contain .xml files. Users do not need API documentation.

    Location is a bit more complex. It can be side by side with the dll, in the subdirectory named after current locale (e.g. C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\en) or even in some weird directory nearby. I would suggest searching for it in the way runtime looks for satellite assemblies.

    Find element

    To find element, you should prepare so called ‘xml-doc ID’ from the metadata. AFAIR it is documented in C# language spec, and a bit in MSDN. See Processing XML documentation.

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