How to get Namespace of an Assembly?

Question

Consider i have an assembly(class library dll) which i have loaded using the following code,

Assembly a = Assembly.LoadFrom(@"C:\Documents and Settings\E454935\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\nunit_dll_hutt\for_hutt_proj\bin\Debug\asdf.dll");   

and i need to get the type of the Assembly. In order to get the type i need the namespace of the assembly.

Type t = asm.GetType("NAMESPACE.CLASSNAME",false,true);             

how can i get the Namespace in the above line.?! as inorder to get the Namespace, i need to get the type..?

Type.Namespace;

i.e i need to get the Namespace of the assembly which can be used to get its Type.

Thanks in advance

Bayonet

Answer 1

Use

Assembly.GetTypes();

This will get you a collection of all types and then you can get the Namespace property for each of them.

Then I guess you can simply check that all the types have same Namespace value and use this value. Otherwise add some other logic to detect what namespace to consider primary.

Dragster

Answer 2

An assembly can contain multiple namespaces. I think what you really want to ask is how to get a type from an assembly without specifying the namespace.

I don't know if there is a better way, but you can try looking for the specific type like this (add - using linq;):

myassembly.GetTypes().SingleOrDefault(t => t.Name == "ClassName")

This will effectively throw if there is more than 1 class with that name under different namespaces (because the Single method ensures there is only 1).

For a list of the namespaces for that class you can:

Assembly.Load("ClassName").GetTypes().Select(t => t.Namespace).Distinct();

Spellman

In addition, an assembly can contain multiple types even within the same namespace. The OP needs to understand this concept. – Diaphanous

Thanks, this answer is better. – Conrad

Answer 3

Updated:

IF the assembly name & assembly namespace are same in your project and you sure keep theme same AND you want get the namespace of the current executed Assembly then you can use this:

var namespace = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Name;

And for your loaded assembly:

var namespace = myAssembly.GetName().Name;

---

But IF the assembly name & assembly namespace are not same in your project then you can use this way:

// Like @eglasius answer >>
// Find all namespaces in the target assembly where a class with the following name is exists:
var namespaceList=Assembly.Load("MyClassName").GetTypes().Select(t => t.Namespace).Distinct();

Greensward

The assembly name is not the same thing as the assembly's namespace, or the namespace of any particular type within that assembly. So unfortunately, this answer is incorrect. – Akin

@ErikE, Thank u for your hint. I know the question has been answered, my answer was a secondary way for this case: By default they are equal and in some cases developers keep them same, so In this cases my answer is correct. I updated my answer with an additional IF. – Greensward

Answer 4

Using Mono/Xamarin, you don't have access to the "NameSpace" property. You may use the following instead:

var str = typeof(ATypeInTheAssembly).AssemblyQualifiedName;
return str.Split(',')[1].Trim();

Benevento

Answer 5

Given an assembly should contain at least one type and every type is in a namespace that is in the assembly namespace, the shortest one of them will be the assembly namespace.

public string GetAssemblyNamespace(Assembly asm)
{
    string ns = "";

    foreach (Type tp in asm.Modules.First().GetTypes())
    {
        if (ns.Length == 0 || tp.Namespace.Length < ns.Length)
            ns = tp.Namespace;
    }

    return ns;
}

Waistcloth

Answer 6

Assembly.GetName().Name will get you the default namespace

Taxicab

Isn't that user-defined metadata? It could be anything then. – Hunter

No, this is the name of the file. It doesn't have to have anything to do with the namespace. – Anaemia

this is the name of the file. It doesn't have to have anything to do with the namespace – Tades

Answer 7

To take only the namespace follows the code below:

  var assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetAssembly(this.GetType());//Get the assembly object
  var nameSpace = assembly.GetType().Namespace;//Get the namespace

OR

public string GetNamespace(object obj)
{
    var nameSpace = obj.GetType().Namespace;//Get the namespace

    return nameSpace;
}

Luba

This answer is plainly wrong. assembly.GetType() returns a System.Reflection.RuntimeAssembly object and the namespace for that class is obviously always System.Reflection. – Invariant

@Invariant The first code helped me at some point, but I do not remember what the application was. As soon as I find where I used the code I put more details – Luba

Answer 8

Private Function GetRootNamespace() As String
    Try
        Dim xDeclaringTypeFullName As String = Assembly.GetEntryAssembly.EntryPoint.DeclaringType.FullName
        Dim xRootNamespace As String = xDeclaringTypeFullName.Substring(0, xDeclaringTypeFullName.IndexOf("."))

        Return xRootNamespace
    Catch ex As Exception
        Return String.Empty
    End Try
End Function

Membrane

Thank you for your interest in contributing to the Stack Overflow community. This question already has quite a few answers—including one that has been extensively validated by the community. Are you certain your approach hasn’t been given previously? If so, it would be useful to explain how your approach is different, under what circumstances your approach might be preferred, and/or why you think the previous answers aren’t sufficient. Can you kindly edit your answer to offer an explanation? – Ga

Also, this question is for C#, but you’ve answered in VB. This doesn’t answer the question asked. – Ga