Assembly and PE file

subhajit bhadury

19y2.7k

Hi, I am new in this .net world. Can any body plzz tell me what is the difference between Assembly and PE file. Both are same? cos in 2 or 3 sites I found that "In the Microsoft Windows implementation of .NET, an assembly is a PE (portable executable) file". Plzz help me.

3 Replies

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kiran mahamkali19y ago
For more information about the PE file format plz follow this link :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Executable
subhajit bhadury19y ago
Thats mean when code is compiled then this assembly is generated using PE file format? is assembly made in folder "C:\PVD_CASH\bin\Debug" ? PVD_CASH is my application's folder name.
Kaushik Vatsa19y ago
Assembly is a type of PE file .Microsoft introduced the PE File format, more commonly known as the PE format, as part of the original Win32 specifications. However, PE files are derived from the earlier Common Object File Format (COFF) . When .Net come into picture , it packages the whole code into a PE format compatible file called assembly , which is the main reusable and deployable unit of .Net framework .

PE file follow certain format and specifications , through which files are loaded into memory via the Windows loader . So does assembly gets loaded as it is a type of PE file .