System with plugins in C#

Question

I have to develop a system to monitor sensor information, but many sensors might be added in the future.

That said, the idea would be to develop a system that would

Answer 1

Each sensor should implement a standard interface so that routines that handle lists of sensors can treat them in a standard manner. Include a ID field in the interface that is unique too each type of sensor so you can handle special cases.

Look at the Reflection API to learn how to scan a directory of .NET Assemblies and look inside them.

Each assembly should have a factory class that it's job is to return a list of sensors that are in that assembly. I recommend that you make it a subroutine not a function and passes it a list that that it appends too. SensorDLL1 appends 4 sensors to the emptylist, SensorDLL2 appends 8 sensor to the list which now has 12 sensors and so on. This approach is the most flexible in the long run.

You will either have to make up a naming convention to find the factory class or use an attribute. Note I don't recommend just scanning the assembly for everything that implements your sensor interface as you could have code inside the factory that controls which sensors are available. This is useful for licensing.