Compare compiled .NET assemblies?

Question

Are there any good programs out there to compare to compile .NET assemblies?

For example I have HelloWorld.dll (1.0.0.0) and HelloWorld.dll (2.0.0.0), and I want to compare differences how can I do this?

I know I can use .NET Reflector and use the Assembly Diff plugin. Are there any other good tools out there to do this?

Answer 1

Ways to Compare .NET Assemblies suggests

Commercial:

• NDepend

Free:

• JustAssembly (only shows differences in API)
• BitDiffer (same)
• Reflector Diff Add-in (which you've already discovered, but not available anymore)

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Existing compare tools like Beyond Compare (commercial) can do this by special configuration. Here's how to do this for Beyond Compare:

• Go to Tools → Options
• Click New.., select "Text format", click OK
• Give it a name (say, EXE, or DLL), and specify the mask as *.exe or *.dll
• Click on tab Conversion and select "External program (Unicode filenames)"
• Under "Loading", specify the path to ildasm and add %s /OUT:%t /NOBAR (i.e.: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.8 Tools\ildasm.exe %s /OUT:%t /NOBAR)
• Make sure to check disable editing.
• Click Save, then Close
• Restart BC and open two exe files to compare, it should decompile into ilasm automatically now.

You can also add syntax highlighting to this new format. I plan to send the syntax file to them so that it'll become available to share.