Correct Way to Load Assembly, Find Class and Call Run() Method

Question

Sample console program.

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // ... code to build dll ... not written yet ...
        Assembly a         


        

Answer 1

I'm doing exactly what you're looking for in my rules engine, which uses CS-Script for dynamically compiling, loading, and running C#. It should be easily translatable into what you're looking for, and I'll give an example. First, the code (stripped-down):

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Reflection;
using CSScriptLibrary;

namespace RulesEngine
{
    /// 

    /// Make sure  is an interface, not just any type of class.
    /// 
    /// Should be enforced by the compiler, but just in case it's not, here's your warning.
    /// 
    /// 
    public class RulesEngine where T : class
    {
        public RulesEngine(string rulesScriptFileName, string classToInstantiate)
            : this()
        {
            if (rulesScriptFileName == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("rulesScriptFileName");
            if (classToInstantiate == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("classToInstantiate");

            if (!File.Exists(rulesScriptFileName))
            {
                throw new FileNotFoundException("Unable to find rules script", rulesScriptFileName);
            }

            RulesScriptFileName = rulesScriptFileName;
            ClassToInstantiate = classToInstantiate;

            LoadRules();
        }

        public T @Interface;

        public string RulesScriptFileName { get; private set; }
        public string ClassToInstantiate { get; private set; }
        public DateTime RulesLastModified { get; private set; }

        private RulesEngine()
        {
            @Interface = null;
        }

        private void LoadRules()
        {
            if (!File.Exists(RulesScriptFileName))
            {
                throw new FileNotFoundException("Unable to find rules script", RulesScriptFileName);
            }

            FileInfo file = new FileInfo(RulesScriptFileName);

            DateTime lastModified = file.LastWriteTime;

            if (lastModified == RulesLastModified)
            {
                // No need to load the same rules twice.
                return;
            }

            string rulesScript = File.ReadAllText(RulesScriptFileName);

            Assembly compiledAssembly = CSScript.LoadCode(rulesScript, null, true);

            @Interface = compiledAssembly.CreateInstance(ClassToInstantiate).AlignToInterface();

            RulesLastModified = lastModified;
        }
    }
}

This will take an interface of type T, compile a .cs file into an assembly, instantiate a class of a given type, and align that instantiated class to the T interface. Basically, you just have to make sure the instantiated class implements that interface. I use properties to setup and access everything, like so:

private RulesEngine rulesEngine;

public RulesEngine RulesEngine
{
    get
    {
        if (null == rulesEngine)
        {
            string rulesPath = Path.Combine(Application.StartupPath, "Rules.cs");

            rulesEngine = new RulesEngine(rulesPath, typeof(Rules).FullName);
        }

        return rulesEngine;
    }
}

public IRulesEngine RulesEngineInterface
{
    get { return RulesEngine.Interface; }
}

For your example, you want to call Run(), so I'd make an interface that defines the Run() method, like this:

public interface ITestRunner
{
    void Run();
}

Then make a class that implements it, like this:

public class TestRunner : ITestRunner
{
    public void Run()
    {
        // implementation goes here
    }
}

Change the name of RulesEngine to something like TestHarness, and set your properties:

private TestHarness testHarness;

public TestHarness TestHarness
{
    get
    {
        if (null == testHarness)
        {
            string sourcePath = Path.Combine(Application.StartupPath, "TestRunner.cs");

            testHarness = new TestHarness(sourcePath , typeof(TestRunner).FullName);
        }

        return testHarness;
    }
}

public ITestRunner TestHarnessInterface
{
    get { return TestHarness.Interface; }
}

Then, anywhere you want to call it, you can just run:

ITestRunner testRunner = TestHarnessInterface;

if (null != testRunner)
{
    testRunner.Run();
}

It would probably work great for a plugin system, but my code as-is is limited to loading and running one file, since all of our rules are in one C# source file. I would think it'd be pretty easy to modify it to just pass in the type/source file for each one you wanted to run, though. You'd just have to move the code from the getter into a method that took those two parameters.

Also, use your IRunnable in place of ITestRunner.