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Source Code

The VbNetCarClient project is located under the Chapter 15 subdirectory.

Building and Consuming a Multifile Assembly

Now that you have constructed and consumed a single-file assembly, let’s examine the process of

building a multifile assembly. Recall that a multifile assembly is simply a collection of related mod-

ules that is deployed and versioned as a single logical unit. At the time of this writing, the Visual

Studio IDE does not support a C# multifile assembly project template. Therefore, you will need to

make use of the command-line compiler (csc.exe) if you wish to build such a beast.

To illustrate the process, you will build a multifile assembly named AirVehicles. The primary

module (airvehicles.dll) will contain a single class type named Helicopter. The related manifest

(also contained in airvehicles.dll) catalogs an additional *.netmodule file named ufo.netmodule,

which contains another class type named (of course) Ufo. Although both class types are physically

contained in separate binaries, you will group them into a single namespace named AirVehicles.

Finally, both classes are created using C# (although you could certainly mix and match languages if

you desire).

To begin, open a simple text editor (such as Notepad) and create the following Ufo class defini-

tion saved to a file named ufo.cs:

using System;

namespace AirVehicles

{

public class Ufo

{

public void AbductHuman()

{

Console.WriteLine("Resistance is futile");

}

}

}

To compile this class into a .NET module, navigate to the folder containing ufo.cs and issue

the following command to the C# compiler (the module option of the /target flag instructs csc.exe

to produce a *.netmodule as opposed to a *.dll or an *.exe file):

csc.exe /t:module ufo.cs

If you now look in the folder that contains the ufo.cs file, you should see a new file named

ufo.netmodule (take a peek). Next, create a new file named helicopter.cs that contains the follow-

ing class definition:

using System;

namespace AirVehicles

{

public class Helicopter

{

public void TakeOff()

{

Console.WriteLine("Helicopter taking off!");

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