Reading Assembly attributes in VB.NET

Abstract

This article allows you to read the assembly attributes information using .NET. The information store in AssemblyInfo files like Title, Description, copyright, Trade mark can be read using reflection and assembly namespace.

Topic

The assembly attribute is used by manifest to provide information about the assembly. In this article we will see who to read Informational Attributes from AssemblyInfo file. In AssemblyInfo file Informational Attributes contains the information about product Name, description, Trademark, copyright. In general this information's are either hardcode or store in database or flat file. .NET assembly provides to store this information in AssemblyInfo file and after compilation it becomes the part of assembly. So at run time one can read this information.

Part of Assembly Information

Sr. no.	Attribute	Description
1	AssemblyTitle	Title name from the assembly.
2	AssemblyDescription	It provides the detail description from the assembly.
3	AssemblyCompany	It Provides the company information from the assembly.
4	AssemblyProduct	It provides the production information from the assembly.
5	AssemblyCopyright	It Provides the copyright from the assembly.
6	AssemblyTrademark	It Provides the trademark from the assembly.

Each of these attributes has a defined class, which is used to read the information from the AssemblyInfo file.

Follow the Steps below to read the AssemblyInfo File.

Step 1

Create VB Windows Application and change the project name to AssemblyInfo.

Step 2

Open AssemblyInfo.vb file and edit the file with the changes shown below

<Assembly: AssemblyTitle("Attribute Information ")>
<Assembly: AssemblyDescription("Reading the Assembly Attribute Information ")> <Assembly: AssemblyCompany("Company Name")>
<Assembly: AssemblyProduct(".NET")>
<Assembly: AssemblyCopyright("Copyright VB.NET All Rights Reserved")>
<Assembly: AssemblyTrademark("Attribute Information")>

Step 3

Create new Class file and rename it to clsAppInfo. Imports system.reflection name space.

Imports Namespaces
Imports SR = System.Reflection

Step 4

Define one Interface called IAssemblyInfomation with following signature.

Interface IApplicationSM
ReadOnly Property Title() As String
ReadOnly Property Description() As String
ReadOnly Property Company() As String
ReadOnly Property Product() As String
ReadOnly Property Copyright() As String
ReadOnly Property Trademark() As String
End Interface

Step 5

Create Public class ClsAssInfo and implements the above define interface. Write the implementation of above properties.

Public Class ClsAssInfo
Implements IAssInfo
Dim m_AssInfo As System.Reflection.Assembly
Sub New()
m_AssInfo = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly
End Sub
Public ReadOnly Property Company() As String Implements
AssemblyInfo.IAssInfo.Company
Get
Dim m_Company As SR.AssemblyCompanyAttribute
m_Company = m_AssInfo.GetCustomAttributes(GetType(SR.AssemblyCompanyAttribute), False)(0)
Return m_Company.Company.ToString
End Get
End Property
Public ReadOnly Property Copyright() As String Implements
AssemblyInfo.IAssInfo.Copyright
Get
Dim m_Copyright As SR.AssemblyCopyrightAttribute
m_Copyright = m_AssInfo.GetCustomAttributes(GetType(SR.AssemblyCopyrightAttribute), False)(0)
Return m_Copyright.Copyright.ToCharArray
End Get
End Property
Public ReadOnly Property Description() As String Implements
AssemblyInfo.IAssInfo.Description
Get
Dim m_Description As SR.AssemblyDescriptionAttribute
m_Description = m_AssInfo.GetCustomAttributes(GetType(SR.AssemblyDescriptionAttribute), False)(0)
Return m_Description.Description.ToString
End Get
End Property
Public ReadOnly Property Product() As String Implements
AssemblyInfo.IAssInfo.Product
Get
Dim m_Product As SR.AssemblyProductAttribute
m_Product = m_AssInfo.GetCustomAttributes(GetType (SR.AssemblyProductAttribute), False)(0)
Return m_Product.Product.ToString
End Get
End Property
Public ReadOnly Property Title() As String Implements AssemblyInfo.IAssInfo.Title
Get
Dim m_Title As SR.AssemblyTitleAttribute
m_title = m_AssInfo.GetCustomAttributes(GetType(SR.AssemblyTitleAttribute), False)(0)
Return m_Title.Title.ToString
End Get
End Property
Public ReadOnly Property Trademark() As String Implements
AssemblyInfo.IAssInfo.Trademark
Get
Dim m_Trademark As SR.AssemblyTrademarkAttribute
m_Trademark = m_AssInfo.GetCustomAttributes(GetType(SR.AssemblyTrademarkAttribute), False)(0)
Return m_Trademark.Trademark.ToString
End Get
End Property

Step 6

Open the Window form and instantiate clsAppInfo class and use clsAppInfo Method to read the Assembly information.

Description of some function used here

System.Reflection:

The System.Reflection namespace provide information about classes and interface that gets loaded dynamically and provides information about data member, function with the ability to dynamically create and invoke types.

GetExecutingAssembly Function:

It loads the current assembly that is running form the code. In our case the currently assembly is AssemblyInfo.