What exactly is an Assembly in C# or .NET?

Question

Could you please explain what is an Assembly in C# or .NET?

1. Where does it begin and where does it end?
2. What important information should I know about

Answer 1

After writing source code of your program(project) then a file is created which may be DLL or EXE depends on your project. It makes only once for a single project. It has two types 1:- single 2:- shared or multiprogram single assembly used only in a single program while shared can be used for multiprogram

Answer 2

http://www.codeguru.com/columns/csharp_learning/article.php/c5845

An assembly is a file that is automatically generated by the compiler upon successful compilation of every .NET application. It can be either a Dynamic Link Library or an executable file. It is generated only once for an application and upon each subsequent compilation the assembly gets updated.

Answer 3

The answer is in order for immediate-grasping.

Put simply, it is the compiled project involving your classes and additional files, if there are. That is, each project in a solution is assembly.

Or more techinally,

An assembly is where a type is stored in the flesystem. Assemblies are a mechanism for deploying code. For example, the System.Data.dll assembly contains types for managing data. To use types in other assemblies, they must be referenced. - Source

How do we know it? If you glance at properties of a project under the solution you can see the following images.

When you compile the project, it turns out to DLL or EXE.

Answer 4

An assembly is a DLL or an EXE which will be created when you publish it or compile your application.

Answer 5

.NET assembly

In the Microsoft .NET framework, an assembly is a partially compiled code library for use in deployment, versioning and security.

Answer 6

When a source code is compiled by the language compiler it Generate a Managed Assembly and MSIL(MisroSoft Intermediate Language). That Assembly contains .dll or .exe file. An Assebmly can be of two types Private Assembly and Shared Assembly, shared Assembly is stored in GAC(Global Assembly Cache) so that any application can refer to it while private assembly is stored in application folder which can be used by only one Application.