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Exploring an Assembly Using ildasm.exe

If you are beginning to feel a tad overwhelmed at the thought of gaining mastery over every name-

space in the .NET platform, just remember that what makes a namespace unique is that it contains

types that are somehow semantically related. Therefore, if you have no need for a user interface

beyond a simple console application, you can forget all about the System.Windows.Forms, System.

Windows, and System.Web namespaces (among others). If you are building a painting application, the

database namespaces are most likely of little concern. Like any new set of prefabricated code, you

learn as you go.

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The Intermediate Language Disassembler utility (ildasm.exe), which ships with the .NET

Framework 3.5 SDK, allows you to load up any .NET assembly and investigate its contents, includ-

ing the associated manifest, CIL code, and type metadata. To load ildasm.exe, open a Visual Studio

command prompt (using Start ➤ All Programs ➤ Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 ➤ Visual Studio

Tools), type ildasm and press the Enter key.

Once you run this tool, proceed to the File ➤ Open menu command and navigate to an assem-

bly you wish to explore. By way of illustration, here is the Calc.exe assembly generated based on the

Calc.cs file shown earlier in this chapter (see Figure 1-7). ildasm.exe presents the structure of an

assembly using a familiar tree-view format.

Figure 1-7. ildasm.exe allows you to see the CIL code, manifest, and metadata within a .NET assembly.