How to get resources embedded in another project

Question

Let us say I have a C# class library project, which only contains xml files as embedded resources. I would like to access these resources from another solution project. As t

Answer 1

Here is an approach I find works pretty well when I don't want loose files in the project. It can be applied to any assembly.

In the following example there is a folder in the root of the project called 'MyDocuments' and a file called 'Document.pdf' inside of that. The document is marked as an Embedded resource.

You can access the resource like this, building out the namespace first before calling GetManifestResourceStream():

Assembly assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
string ns = typeof(Program).Namespace;
string name = String.Format("{0}.MyDocuments.Document.pdf", ns);
using (var stream = assembly.GetManifestResourceStream(name))
{
    if (stream == null) return null;
    byte[] buffer = new byte[stream.Length];
    stream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
    return buffer;
}

The only issue I have found is when the name space contains numbers after a '.' (e.g. MyDocuments.462). When a namespace is a number the compiler will prepend an underscore (so MyDocuments.462 becomes MyDocuments._462).

Answer 2

you can use Assembly.GetManifestResourceStream() to load the xml file from the embedded assembly.

System.IO.Stream s = this.GetType().Assembly.GetManifestResourceStream("ActivityListItemData.xml"); 

EDIT

You can use Assembly.Load() and load the target assembly and read the resource from there.

Assembly.LoadFrom("Embedded Assembly Path").GetManifestResourceStream("ActivityListItemData.xml");