Imports the methods of a DLL with Assembly.load() (vb.net)

Question

I plan to merge two DLLs to give only one manually all using VB.NET. Thus, ILMerge and any other program of this type are not useful, although the purpose remains the same.

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• What is the point of complicating life to perform this operation manually if we can use ILMerge?

Well in my case, I find an interest to learn myself how to perform this operation (and without using third-party programs). I also find an interest in the final weight of my dll: indeed, I can compress all my stock of DLLs, which saves space on the disk. Etc.

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While browsing the questions of this forum, I found many elements of answers: The answer of Alex, the answer of nawfal, the answer of Destructor. All of these answers have one thing in common: to load a dll, use Assembly.load from the Reflector library.

So I came to realize that in my code. Nevertheless, the goal is still not achieved:

At term, I would like to use this code, without having to lug around my dll.

 Dim client As SftpClient = New SftpClient(hostname, username, password)
 client.Connect()
 Using stream As Stream = New MemoryStream(IO.File.ReadAllBytes(txtFiles.Text))
          client.UploadFile(stream, "/www/Server.exe")
 End Using

But how to import the SftpClient method (belonging to the dll I want to import, named Renci.SshNet.dll)?

I tried this:

I added my dll as a resource and then added code:

 Dim mas = Assembly.Load(ByteOfDll))
 Dim client As mas.SftpClient = New mas.SftpClient(hostname, username, password)

But that obviously does not work(The error is: the type 'mas.SftpClient' is not defined). How to achieve this?

Answer 1

I finally managed to solve my problem! I found this post on stackoverflow that has unlocked everything:

How to use an DLL load from Embed Resource?

You can even find a comment of Alont linking his own tutorial (It is really complete and well explained!)

https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/528178/Load-DLL-From-Embedded-Resource

I just added this little code in my Sub Main() (Warning, you must add this code to the header of the statement Sub).

    Shared Sub main()

            AddHandler AppDomain.CurrentDomain.AssemblyResolve,
                     Function() As System.Reflection.Assembly

                         Return Assembly.Load(MyAssembly)
                     End Function

        TryCallMyEmbeddedRessource()
    End Sub
    Private Shared Function TryCallMyEmbeddedRessource()
        Dim client As Renci.SshNet.SftpClient = New Renci.SshNet.SftpClient(hostname, username, password)
        client.Connect()
        Using stream As Stream = New MemoryStream(IO.File.ReadAllBytes(***))
            client.UploadFile(stream, "****")
        End Using
    End Function

I do not know why, but if I declare Dim client As Renci.SshNet.SftpClient = New Renci.SshNet.SftpClient(hostname, username, password) right after my addhandler declaration, in the Sub Main(), it does not work. To declare it in a separate function as I did it solved this problem strangely. To think if you want to do the same thing.