Professional IronPython

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CHAPTER 9
InteractIng wIth cOM Objects
Using the ILDasm Command Line
The ILDasm utility usually works fine when you run it and provide the filename of the interop 
assembly you want to view. However, sometimes an interop assembly is so complex that you really 
do want to optimize the ILDasm view. Consequently, you use command line options to change the 
way ILDasm works. ILDasm has the following command line syntax.
ildasm [options] [options]
Even though this section shows the full name of all the command line switches, 
you can use just the first three letters. For example, you can abbreviate 
/BYTES
as 
/BYT
. In addition, ILDasm accepts both the dash (-) and slash (/) as command 
line switch prefixes, so 
/BYTES
 and 
-BYTES
 work equally well.
The options can appear either before or after the filename. You can divide the options into those 
that affect output redirection (sending the output to a location other than the display) and those that 
change the way the file/console output appears. ILDasm further divides the file/console options into 
those that work with EXE and DLL files, and those that work with EXE, DLL, OBJ, and LIB files. 
Here are the options for output redirection.
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/OUT=
Filename
: Redirects the output to the specified file rather than to a GUI.
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/TEXT
: Redirects the output to a console window rather than to a GUI. This option isn’t very 
useful for anything but the smallest files because the entire content of the interop assembly 
simply scrolls by. Of course, you can always use a pipe (|) to send the output to the More 
utility to view the output one page at a time.
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/HTML
: Creates the file in HTML format (valid with the 
/OUT
option only). This option is 
handy for making the ILDasm available for a group of developers on a Web site. For example, 
if you type 
ILDasm /OUT=WMPLib.HTML /HTML WMPLib.DLL
and press Enter, you obtain 
WMPLib.HTML
. The resulting file is huge — 7.53 MB for 
WMPLib.HTML
. Figure 9-9 shows how 
this file will appear.
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