I have a Bootstrapper that looks through all Assemblies in an ASP.NET MVC application to find types that implement an IBootstrapperTask
interface, and then registers them with an IOC Contrainer. The idea is that you can literaly place your IBootstrapperTasks anywhere, and organise your Projects how you please.
Code for Bootstrapper:
public class Bootstrapper
{
static Bootstrapper()
{
Type bootStrapperType = typeof(IBootstrapperTask);
IList<Assembly> assemblies = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies();
List<Type> tasks = new List<Type>();
foreach (Assembly assembly in assemblies)
{
var types = from t in assembly.GetTypes()
where bootStrapperType.IsAssignableFrom(t)
&& !t.IsInterface && !t.IsAbstract
select t;
tasks.AddRange(types);
}
foreach (Type task in tasks)
{
if (!IocHelper.Container().Kernel.HasComponent(task.FullName))
{
IocHelper.Container().AddComponentLifeStyle(
task.FullName, task, LifestyleType.Transient);
}
}
}
public static void Run()
{
// Get all registered IBootstrapperTasks, call Execute() method
}
}
After a full build, AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies()
returns all Assemblies in my solution (including all the GAC one's but that doesn't bother me).
However, if the AppDomain is restarted, or I 'bounce' the Web.Config file (adding a space and saving), the static constructor is run again but when AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies()
is called, most of the Assemblies are missing, including the one containing my IBootstrapperTask types.
How do I get around this problem? I guess I could System.IO the /bin directory and load all the DLLs in there manually, but would rather avoid this if possible, or is that the only way? Am I taking the right general approach to this?
This is an ASP.NET MVC 2.0 application running on .NET 4.0, I get this problem with the built-in Visual Studio 2010 Cassini web server, and with IIS7.0 in Integrated Pipeline Mode on Windows Server 2008.
Edit: I just came across this SO post Difference between AppDomain.GetAssemblies and BuildManager.GetReferencedAssemblies which says the AppDomain only loads the Assemblies as they're needed (eg. when a method/class from that Assembly is first called). I guess that would explain why the Assemblies are missing on AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies()
as the Bootstrapper is run very early on.
I noticed if I placed a call to 'something' from the missing Assembly before the Bootstrapper eg:
public class MvcApplication : System.Web.HttpApplication
{
protected void Application_Start()
{
MyApp.MissingAssembly.SomeClass someClass =
new MyApp.MissingAssembly.SomeClass();
Bootstrapper.Run();
}
}
...it seems to fix the problem, but it is a bit of a hack.