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Get an Executable Assembly Name

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17 Oct 2008CPOL2 min read 77K   555   15   6
Use GetEntryAssembly to obtain an executable's assembly name - even from a DLL.

Introduction

This little example shows how you can obtain the assembly name of an executable, even if you seek it from a DLL called by that executable.

Background

I was looking for a reliable way to get the assembly name of the original starting executable. I found plenty of examples of using System.Environment.GetCommandLineArgs()[0], but it returns the path to the executable file name, not the assembly name defined in the Project Properties.

Additionally, I did not want the full path, just the name of the assembly, even if the file name had changed. Sure, I could use System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(path) to get the name, but that would not allow me to express my true OCD Personality Type nature :). If called within the IDE, you would get "ExeName.vshost".

Finally, I wanted to obtain the name of the original executable assembly, even if from a DLL called by the executable. How did I finally satisfy my own personal obsessive nature and find a hackless solution?

Using the code

The GetEntryAssembly() method returns the assembly of the first executable that was executed. I used the following to obtain the assembly name of the original executable:

C#:

C#
string name = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().GetName().Name;

Visual Basic .NET

VB
Dim name as String = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().GetName().Name; 

We could use System.Windows.Forms.Application.ProductName in Visual Basic, but it does not return the assembly name - it returns the assembly Product Name (a slight distinction - again that whole OCD thing :)

If you use this code in a DLL file, it will still return the assembly name of the executable that called on the DLL. I use this method in a generic logging class that I call from many different projects - I would like the entries it makes to contain the assembly name of the program that used the DLL. It even returns the original assembly name when the DLL is called from another DLL that was called by the original EXE! (Whew! Time for medication. :)

The sample application produces these message boxes:

AppExample.PNG

from this executable's assembly:

AssemblyName.png

Enjoy!

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
Systems Engineer ThomsonReuters Tax & Accounting
United States United States
I am a Senior System Administrator for a 400+ server ASP farm. With such a large farm and limited staff, our goal is to add as much automation as possible to the system. Most of my programming consists of intelligent slack: spending 2 hours to write a program that handles a reoccurring 10 minute manual job.

Comments and Discussions

 
QuestionQuestion Pin
Jo_Elena26-Aug-14 5:37
Jo_Elena26-Aug-14 5:37 
AnswerRe: Question Pin
hayes.adrian2-Jun-15 7:30
hayes.adrian2-Jun-15 7:30 
GeneralThanks! Pin
Sergey A Alekseev11-Aug-13 6:42
Sergey A Alekseev11-Aug-13 6:42 
GeneralMy vote of 1 Pin
KarstenK31-Oct-10 23:53
mveKarstenK31-Oct-10 23:53 
GeneralThanks! Pin
Wes Jones18-May-09 13:24
Wes Jones18-May-09 13:24 
Thanks! This was bugging me, and now I found your article. Thanks for taking the time to post it!
GeneralHere some code you may find useful [modified] Pin
Ilíon20-Oct-08 4:19
Ilíon20-Oct-08 4:19 

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